Montserrat (adapted from the French of Emmanuel Robles by Lillian Hellman; produced by Kermit Bloomgarden & Gilbert Miller) is a young Spanish officer sent to Venezuela in 1812 to help capture Bolivar. Actually, the idealistic Montserrat is helping to hide him—and known to be. Aware that torture will never make Montserrat talk, his ruthless colonel adopts a crueler course: he collects six innocent townspeople who are to be shot unless Montserrat speaks up. Montserrat, though horrified, refuses; and a long, harrowing ordeal begins.
Suggesting those legendary tales involving both an agonizing decision and the guts to see it through, Montserrat is a kind of moral duel between cynicism at its most brutal and idealism at its most impassioned. Both themes suit the stage, neither quite fills it, and Montserrat has been fattened up by giving the six pawns in the game their grim, gaudy exit scenes as people. As melodrama, Montserrat, though sometimes talky, is oftener tense. As writing, it has much of Adapter Hellman's sharpness and bite: in particular, her villain (well-played by Emlyn Williams) brings a fine sardonic gusto to his villainies.
No doubt so glittering a villain helps flatten out the hero: actually, however, Montserrat (William Redfield) is flat in himself and pretty unconvincing in his selflessness. Yet, without carrying conviction as a man, he might still—had the play backed him up—have stirred the imagination as a hero. But the play lacks the simple intensity of heroic drama; it shares its villain's love of tricks, and is too full of jagged effects to produce a sustained emotion.
Playgoers may be fascinated to watch its serious and its stagy elements fighting all evening for the upper hand, and ending in a draw.