[If "King of Hearts," a] comedy by Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke …, achieves success, it will be because it contains some of the funniest lines to be heard on any New York stage today. If it should fail, it will be because of something discomfiting in it.

I was almost constantly amused by it. But toward the end of the first act I began to be reminded of an experience I had long ago on reading a play by the English humorist Saki. The Saki play was hilarious from first to last, with an incessant drive to mirth which became wearisome. One had the feeling that it could go on forever. There was no reason for it to end, and because of this one suspected there had been no reason for it to begin. But in watching the second act of "King of Hearts" I discovered that it was not like Saki's play at all: there is a point—even an edge—to the Kerr-Brooke comedy. I was not weary with the exhaustion of laughter; I was being made nervous by a strange element in the source of that laughter….

The play concerns Larry Larkin, an obnoxiously, almost maniacally narcissistic and egotistic success-boy who happens to be a comic-strip artist. He is a snob and he is heartless. He is as indefatigably energetic as a trip-hammer besides being as prolix as an unattended radio. He is publicity-crazy, all-devouringly selfish, obtuse, and, worst of all, a phony "humanitarian."…

Contrasted to their horrid "hero" is a mild-mannered character who serves as the cartoonist's "ghost." He is sensible, gentle, shrewdly humorous. He can't become angry or get into a fight without getting sick at his stomach. When he feels the flow of venom within him he lies down to control his nausea. When asked why he does this he answers, "It gives me psychological advantage."

I suppose many women are in a similar position in regard to their male companions. There is something feminine in the character of the cartoonist's assistant. It would probably make the authors of "King of Hearts" sick to express their exasperation directly. They do not, however, lie down. They spew jokes. This gives them their psychological advantage. They are so thoroughly effective at it that we begin to cringe beneath the punishment they inflict. We get the impression that it is not only Larry Larkin who is being slain but all men. We crave some kindness and warmth.

If the play were simply the lighthearted improvisation it seems, it would be foolish to go into all this. But Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke have a gift for more than froth. Concealed in this equivocal farce is a capacity for satire, which may develop when authors' targets are given greater value and the thrusts aimed at them given more self-aware intention.