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The Pleasure of His Company. Cyril Ritchard and Co-Author Cornelia Otis Skinner in the first suavely managed drawing-room comedy in several seasons.
Redhead. One-gal-gang Gwen Verdon is great in a musical that demands all the jazz she has.
My Fair Lady and The Music Man hold first place in the musicomedy race, with Flower Drum Song a few lengths off the pace.
Off Broadway
Mark Twain Tonight! Hal Holbrook, 34, brilliantly portrays the great writer for his modern fans.
Straw Hat
Stratford, Ont., Shakespearean Festival: Othello and Ax You Like It.
Kennebunkport, Me., Playhouse: A Streetcar Named Desire, with Diana Barrymore.
Harrison, Me., Deertrees Theater: The Spider's Web, a mystery by Agatha Christie, dowager of whodunits.
Brighton, Mass., Boston Arts Center Theater: Macbeth, with Jason Robards Jr. and Siobhan McKenna.
Falmouth, Mass., Playhouse: Pat O'Brien plays the blustering Trish-American widower of The Loud Red Patrick.
Newport, R.I., Casino Theater: A couple of newlyweds, Dorothy Malone and Jacaues Bergerac, try Once More, with Feeling.
Stratford, Conn., American Shakespeare Festival: Romeo and Juliet, alternating with The Merrv Wives of Windsor and All's Well That Ends Well.
East Hampton, L.I., John Drew Theater: Problem Parents, by Jean Cocteau, with Mildred Dunnock.
New Hope, Pa., Bucks County Playhouse: Cradle and All, a new play, with Loring Smith and Una Merkel.
Philadelphia, Playhouse in the Park: Angry John Osborne's Epitanh for George Dillon, with Ben Gazzara and Meg Mundy.
Hinsdale, III., Summer Theater: Idiot's Delight, with Nina Foch.
Laguna Beach, Calif., Playhouse: Murder in the Red Barn, with Pamela and Portland Mason, a mother-and-daughter team that might be able to commit the crime with talk alone.
San Francisco, Shakespearean Tent Theater: Macbeth. The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing.
Best Reading
For 2d Plain, by Harry Golden. This new book by the pickle-barrel philosopher who publishes The Carolina Israelite has already joined his Only in America on the bestseller list. Golden may work too hard at being a Jewish Will Rogers, but rambles on amusingly about Manhattan's Lower East Side and the foibles of Southerners.
The Satyricon of Petronius. The salacious, raucously funny bestiary of Roman lowlife, written by Nero's most elegant courtier, finds a witty translator in Classicist William Arrowsmith.
The Tents of Wickedness, by Peter De Vries. The New Yorker's Peter Pun parodies the Symbol Simons of modern literature, concludes that they are juvenile, if not really delinquent.
Image of America, by R. L. Bruckberger. A French priest's moving, trenchant essay on why America, not Russia, is the century's real revolutionary force and the world's best hope.
Richard Nixon, by Earl Mazo. A generally friendly but fair account of a fascinating political career.
Senator Joe McCarthy, by Richard Rovere. A balanced portrait by an able Washington reporter who convincingly presents Joe as a reckless political hipster.