If one could complain about [Five Finger Exercise] (or express doubt at all) it would be on two counts. The first is perhaps largely temporary: the language of the younger characters is full of period slang which has got far enough back to sound dated without as yet taking on a period charm, and, worse, it is the superficial expression of a relationship which has too much heavy whimsy for comfort…. The other cause for complaint may also be rather subjective: it is that, in a period of unmistakably individual, personal drama, Shaffer seems to be resolutely impersonal. (p. 9)

[There] is one noticeable oddity the play has, from which, if we observed it, we might wonder whether Shaffer was more than he first appeared to be. That is the way that the play, while functioning (very well) within a tradition which sedulously avoided eloquence, which cultivated the understated...