Off Broadway

One snowy night last week. Manhattan's top drama critics sloshed down to Greenwich Village to see what is commonly called an "off-Broadway" play--a designation which usually means that nobody has been hopeful enough about the play's chances to invest the $80,000 or $90,000 needed to mount the production on Broadway. This time, the critics found their journey rewarding.

Leslie Stevens' Bullfight proved to be a colorful splash of fiery vignettes, effectively backed by clever lighting, a ballet-drilled cast, exotic . costumes, and an ominous musical background of Spanish guitars. The story concerns two brothers of a proud Mexican family--one an eager young beginner in the bull ring, the other a has-been turned thug and procurer. A victim of his own bitterness, the elder brother (well played by Cinemactor Kurd Hatfield) ruins everyone around him, rapes his sister-in-law (Loretta Leversee), and even accidentally causes his younger brother's death in the ring. "It has flavor . . . depth and feeling," wrote the Times'?, Brooks Atkinson. "Mr. Stevens has real talent for theater writing, being well aware of the fact that drama is intimately related to poetry and music." Playwright Stevens, 29, is the son of a literary Navyman, Vice Admiral Leslie C.

Stevens, former naval attache in Moscow and author of the bestselling Russian Assignment (TIME, Nov. 16). After three years in Air Corps Intelligence in Ice land, young Stevens came out a captain.

He studied at the Yale School of Drama for a year, finally left to buck Broadway.

Supporting himself as a copy boy on TIME, he turned out eleven unproduced plays before he wrote Bullfight. Then he talked and pushed his way into the offices of Broadway producers and well-known angels until he collected enough money ($10,000) to put on his show. Finally, with some friends, he organized a producing company and leased a tiny (299 seats) theater. Thanks to Critic Atkinson and encouraging reviews from other critics (the Herald Tribune's, Walter Kerr spoke of the show's "sensuous excitement . . . warm, intense, illuminating conviction"), the play is a bustling sellout.

Stevens' cup, happily filled, may soon be overflowing. Both Hollywood and foreign theatrical representatives have expressed interest in Bullfight.

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