SOURCE: A review of Square Rounds, in Theatre Journal, Vol. 45, No. 3, October, 1993, pp. 380-81.

[In the following review, Lapenta criticizes the inflated writing of Harrison's Square Rounds but admires the imaginative staging of the production.]

The dividing line between stimulating political theatre and self-indulgent preaching is a fine one. Poet/director Tony Harrison's new theatre piece Square Rounds totters precariously on this thin border, threatening at any moment to topple into pretentiousness. Driven by a simplistic anti-war theme with a form which sometimes resembles an informative lecture more than a play, Square Rounds is often repetitive and frustrating. But just when Harrison the playwright can be dismissed for his inflated sense of the piece's importance, Harrison the director rescues it with striking, imaginative staging.

The corruption of beneficial scientific developments into weapons of mass destruction is the subject of Square Rounds. Harrison's vehicle for this theme is several...