The Lady's Not for Burning has a certain grandeur of language and sentiment, of metaphor and tone. The Harvard Dramatic Club has added a grandeur of production. The first hint of a truly fine performance comes even as the curtain rises on a massive, more or less gothic set admirably suited to Fry's time direction: "1400 more or less exactly."

A stranger appears, cries out against the damnation festering in the world, and asks to be hanged for double murder of the rag and bones man and a pimp, only to be ignored. A witch arrives, breathless from a chase over eight walls, but is nonetheless scheduled for an early a.m. burning. Alizon Eliot, a young breath of innocence fresh from the convent, comes to marry Humphrey Devise, is playfully desired by the impish younger brother Nicholas, falls in love with orphaned Richard, the Mayor's clerk, and grows into a woman by the end of act three. The witch, Jennet, also has time to bewitch Thomas Mendip, the world-weary stranger, (by this time a self-styled Satan) and these two loves develop in counterpoint while the mayor blusters and blows his nose, the Justice strives to look official, the mother chatters and the Chaplain wanders about with a violin (his "better half") and casts forth wisdom to unlistening ears. Since all this is done with remarkable finesse the result is laughter.

Fry's particular dramatic genius lies in verbal manipulation, and the play's verse, ornate and intensive in itself, abounds with witty repartee and with imagery sustained throughout and amplified. The characters, each in his own way, fall in love with metaphor and this richness of language displeases only when it verges on words for words' sake. The setting in a God-conscious world gives an air of profundity to the word--a feeling intensified by the language--but an air not completely founded. Mendip's hell and Alizon's heaven and Jennet's "essential fact" are all modified.

The themes may be serious but the tone is light, and the creatures who take themselves most seriously eventually find flaws in their systems. The Chaplain, for all his awkwardness, comes closest to being a true philosopher but even he fails. We have a set of characters, almost all intrinsically humorous, brought together, contradicting each other and themselves, alive in a world where everything seems accepted and nothing abnormal, and only love somes out on top.

David L. Stone played a truly impressive Mendip, at times compelling, at times dynamic, always in control as the man who owed it to himself to hang. His magnetism almost steals the show; but there is competition. Marguerite Tarrant's witch also draws attention for a beauty of speech and splendor of costume. She is fascinating in her fear of death, and radiant in the night when "Nothing is what it seems to be." Despite the "insect life" surrounding them, the young love, and do so with conviction.

Mary Graydon's mother conveys all the wit and essential fatigue of this intelligently vague woman who could only manage to be Christian in one direction at a time. Her brood--the handsome Humphrey (Joel Crothers) and the over-eager Nicholas (Paul Ronder)--are more than adequately rakish and frenetically inept, respectively; and to say this family gathering seems unusual would be extreme understatement.

Alizon (Elizabeth Commager) portrays loveable and loving innocence with ingratiating charm. She casts a golden glow over the company, and knows how to be still and still radiant. But her lover, Richard (Richard Watson), fails to hold up his end as the youthful son of the parish poor box. For this reason their third act love scene is somewhat less than effective.

The remaining characters are purely comic. The mayor's struggles to remain in command in this splintering world are given boisterous expression by Travis B. Linn; and Jacques C. Feuillan almost completely captures the poignancy inherent in the kindly Chaplain's humor, the humor of a man who thinks rather little but feels "a good deal," to whom legal matters are Greek "except, of course, that I understand Greek." And pillow-stuffed Julius Novick as Justice Tappercoom is witty and partly wise, eager for order but nonetheless good-humored.

There remains only Old Skipps, the rag and bones man who rises drunkly from the would-be dead to bring down the house with laughter and send the lovers home. And Barry Levin is a convincing drunk. And the play is convincingly optimistic.

Director Cary Clasz has put together a smooth production; the castumes are very fine indeed. And the whole vindicates Thomas' assertion that "Laughter is surely the surest touch of genius in creation."