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Because of a melodramatic structure and blank-verse dialogue, the play is the least successful. Yet its ironies are as diverting as any in the author's short stories, and in a process that surely would have amused Professor Nabokov, The Grand-dad's brevity should guarantee the play amateur and student productions throughout the country, granting new life every semester.
Dmitri Nabokov's notes imply that his father had a belief in an afterlife, so the young actors may feel a mystical warmth (if they do not depart from the text). The son and translator may feel similarly blessed for his scholarly renderings from the Russian.
He may also feel a chill. In an introduction, he attributes to T.S. Eliot the notion that writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. Actually that was Robert Frost's line. It is not hard to imagine a lofty scowl from the master of nuance and scruple. Still, given the scope and freshness of this latest volume, he would surely add a final smile.