UNDER THE ILEX
by Clyde Talmage
"You have a way with men," says Lytton Strachey to his endlessly adoring companion, Dora Carrington. "I wish I knew your secret."
The remark aptly summarizes much of the poignancy, torment and humor that marked the 16 messy years of their relationship, years out of which Clyde Talmage has distilled a rather too neat but very lively play. Under the Ilex, at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater, provides its only actors, Julie Harris and Leonard Frey, with roles rich in opportunities for virtuosity that they gratefully, even hungrily, exploit.
Strachey,...