Otherwise Engaged And Other Plays (edition 1975)

OE is a fine play, well-constructed, funny, trenchant. Unsparing? Well, perhaps. The title is ironic, of course, since the central character is actually chronically disengaged from everyone -- wife, brother, friend, lodger, etc. The comedy of the first act is darkened considerably by the melodrama of the second act. The problem, if there is one, is what can only be called a moral problem, in that all the other characters are thoroughly unengaging. Hence, the protagonist's pathology really seems the only way to try to cope. The other two plays were TV dramas, primarily interesting in that the dramatis personae remain the same, but the two leading actors changed roles from one week to the next. ( )