what sort of a day has it been? Well, it's been quite a day. Not since those dark hours before Munich has the free world been so close to the precipice of total war." The banality with which Roger speaks of possible atomic destruction is an exaggeration of the way in which modern newscasters speak of two completely different topics (such as milk and nuclear war) in the same breath and with the same gravity ("A fire killed several hundred people today ... and here are tonight's winning lottery numbers!"). After interviewing Powers (who chuckles and admits that “it doesn't look good''), Roger concludes his broadcast as he began it: after describing the upcoming war as a test of "the morale of a free people," he smoothly asks, "Mother-and-Father-America, have you had your milk today?" Clearly, no disaster can supersede or displace the truly powerful force of American advertising.

Despite these jokes and jabs, it is Kreton, the visitor, who supplies most of the play's satirical attacks. Dressed in the outfit of an 1860s gentleman, he enters the play hoping to witness the Civil War's Battle of Bull Run but instead sees something more amazing: an everyday American family. Explaining that, in terms of his own planet's evolution, civilization on earth is "just beginning,'' Kreton decides to "go native" and study the "primitive" earthlings. His first observation is one that highlights the pettiness that makes up so much human interaction: "I expected to hear everybody talking about great events: battles, poets, that kind of thing, but of course you don't. You just squabble among yourselves." More "squabbling" ensues when Kreton attempts to learn about sex: when he is told by Ellen that his scientific interest in seeing her make love to Conrad is "disgusting," the mind-reading alien
responds, "oh? But... but it's on your minds so much I simply assumed it was all quite public." Ellen explains that earthlings are very private about their sexuality and Kreton's response, "you pay to watch two men hit one another repeatedly, yet you make love secretly, guiltily and with remorse," illustrates the apparent contradiction in American morality: violence is a perfectly acceptable topic (and even a form of entertainment) but sexuality (and the act of human creation) is a "primitive taboo." Like General Powers's emphasis on the Laundry project, Vidal is again highlighting what he sees as an odd distribution of values.

The values of Conrad, Ellen's boyfriend and a confirmed pacifist, are also placed under scrutiny. One of Vidal's "set-pieces" in the play is Kreton's attempt to evoke Conrad's "primitive" side through the mention of patriotic slogans and the singing of patriotic songs; he believes that "all primitives can be lashed to fever-pitch by selected major chords'' and that even a "peace-loving man who grows English walnuts" can be made to embrace the idea of total war. Kreton begins by singing a few verses of "There's No Place Like Home"; when this fails, he switches to "Yankee Doodle," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and the World War II anthem, "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer." Vidal's satire here is aimed against the "patriotism" found in such songs, which, when sung by the alien, seem hollow and silly: as the unmoved Conrad says after Kreton tells him, "it's for Mother," ' "Then let Mother go fight." However, Kreton does discover a way to incite Conrad: by broadcasting the thoughts of a soldier guarding the house—who desires Ellen—Conrad starts a fistfight which Kreton finds thrilling. Conrad is then characterized by Kreton as "a pacifist with a hard right, a stealthy left jab and a sly knee to the groin." Even the most staunch pacifist can display "blood lust," and the human tendency to resort to violence (described by Kreton as "complete reversion to type") is offered to the audience as a topic worthy of mockery and humor.

Despite his apparent perfection, however, Kreton possesses a major fault that serves as Vidal's final word on the play's issues. When talking to Ellen, Kreton says that, on his planet, the inhabitants can control time with their minds, communicate telepathically, and have rid themselves of every disease (including the common cold). But they have also wiped out "the great killer itself: passion," in an effort to eradicate "love-nest slayings, bad temper" and "world wars." The effects of this destruction of passion are described in Kreton's remark, "and now... we feel nothing. We do nothing. We are perfect.'' Perfect as they may seem, the inhabitants of Kreton's planet also find life "terribly dull"—which inspires Kreton to travel to earth and begin a world war in the first place. In one of his conversations with Rosemary, the Speldings's cat, Kreton explains that he "dotes on people'' because of their "primitive addiction to violence" and "because they seethe with emotions" which he finds "bracing and intoxicating." His desire to "wallow shamelessly in their steaming emotions" reveals Vidal's attitude toward his characters and their values: despite the fact that they may behave in ridiculous ways and engage in irrational fighting, at least human beings have emotional lives that, at the very least, make life interesting. At the end of the play when Kreton is retrieved by his superior, Delton 4, he tells the Speldings, "oh, how I envy you.... For being so violent... so loving ... so beautifully imperfect. And so much happier than you know." Even a "Laundry Project" coordinator or a bumbling broadcaster has a more fulfilling existence than the most “perfect'' of aliens. Despite all of the jokes at humanity's expense, it is Vidal's fondness for humanity as a whole that prevents the satire from ever becoming too bitter or the faults he points out from being seen as irredeemable.

Source: Daniel Moran, in an essay for Drama for Students, Gale, 1997.

There is enough material in A Visit to a Small Planet, by Gore Vidal, for roughly an hour and a half of fine, fantastic comedy. It is somewhat unfortunate that the play at the Booth is obliged to go on for about fifty minutes longer than that, forcing the author to fill in this considerable gap either by stretching out genuinely comic situations almost to the breaking point or by writing in scenes that seem to contain rather less humor than desperation. The extra stuffing, presumably to be explained by the fact that the script is an expansion of one that was originally employed on television, is frequently irritating, but it isn't really calamitous, and I'm sure that you'll have a very pleasant time with Mr. Vidal's cheerful little report on the day the Spacemen came. In neither style nor invention can A Visit to a Small Planet be compared with Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, which also dealt with supernatural callers but did so with a precise, sustained, and chilling wit certainly beyond Mr. Vidal's powers and probably even a trifle foreign to his natural disposition. Within its limitations, however, his play is a remarkably lively and agreeable piece of work, and it has the further merit of providing two highly—if not, indeed, outrageously—gifted comedians, Cyril Ritchard and Eddie Mayehoff, with parts just about perfectly suited to their talents.

The story you are asked to contemplate is concerned with the dreadfully disturbing things that are going to happen sometime next summer in a charming old house belonging to a celebrated newscaster near Manassas, in Virginia. The trouble begins with the landing of a flying saucer on the lawn and the emergence from it of a fascinating stranger, whose name is Kreton. This man is not from Mars, a planet that, in fact, he regards as almost impossible socially, but from some immensity beyond our present poor conception of time and space, and he belongs to a race that, having abolished food and sex, along, of course, with death, inevitably has a good deal of time for travel. His own hobby, as it happens, is the Earth, whose inhabitants amuse him in many ways but especially in their unique capacity for violence. Having hoped to arrive in time for the Battle of Bull Run, he has come equipped with the appropriate costumes, including an extremely handsome Confederate uniform, but his navigation proved faulty, and though he hits the right place, the date, to his embarrassment, is nearly a hundred years off. Deprived of the quaint old war he came to look in on, he can think of nothing to do but start a nice new one of his own, and he has just about finished his arrangements when, happily, his superiors whisk him back to the infinite.

It is quite a plot, combining, as you can see, satire with fantasy, and on the whole Mr. Vidal has done very nicely with it. His achievements are fairly difficult to describe. One particularly enchanting scene, for instance, shows Kreton trying to arouse the proper martial ardor in a young man by singing him a medley of the most terrible war songs ever written; another, involving some interesting sound effects, demonstrates his ability to read a whole stageful of minds simultaneously; another finds him in an intimate conversation with a cat, agreeing with her, as I got it, that it is no more disgusting to eat mice than to eat bacon; and still another pictures a Pentagon general doing his desperate best to fill in—naturally, in quadruplicate—a set of official forms classifying his guest and explaining the purpose of his visit in suitable military language. I might go on with these notes indefinitely, but it is obvious that the quality of the original is almost completely lacking in them, and it seems both superfluous and unkind to tax you further. It is probably enough to say that while I could do without a few things, such as a burlesque newscast that struck me as at once tedious and familiar, and a couple of not too exhilarating sequences devoted to young love, I found most of the play considerably funnier than anything else that has turned up this year.

The performances given by Mr. Ritchard, as Kreton, and Mr. Mayehoff, as the general, are in hilarious contrast. Although the action of the play takes place in 1957 and his own garb is that of 1861, Mr. Ritchard's conduct is basically that of a Restoration fop, and this wonderfully mannered elegance is the best of all attitudes for a man engaged in what can only be described as a slumming expedition.

Mr. Mayehoff's technique is broader, being modeled more or less on that of the grampus, and no one is better equipped to impersonate a soldier whose tongue can never hope to keep up with one of the slowest minds in the world. At one point, for reasons that escape me now, he has occasion to imitate a mobile laundry unit, and not since Reginald Gardiner gave his famous impression of the sounds made by wallpaper has the art of mimicry reached a more peculiar height. The others in the cast, which Mr. Ritchard took the professional risk of directing himself, include Philip Coolidge, as the newscaster; Sibyl Bowan, as his empty-headed wife; and Sarah Marshall and Conrad Janis, as a pair of young lovers, whose sexual abandon Kreton finds very stimulating—a point of view I couldn't always share. They are all quite satisfactory in these subordinate assignments.

Source: Wolcott Gibbs, "Out of Nowhere" in the New Yorker, Vol 32, no 52, February 16,1957.

Visit to a Small Planet, seen on Sunday evening via the National Broadcasting Company, was welcome good fun, something off the beaten path in television drama. Not only was it satirical fantasy, a most rare video commodity but also it was satirical fantasy in which all the pieces fitted together.

Gore Vidal, the author, wrote about a gentleman from another dimension who is fascinated by the helpless earth people. Cyril Ritchard portrayed the visitor with great style and relish. And Jack Smight, the director, made sure everyone in the control room kept tongue in cheek. The fruit of their labors was a production that on the whole was an amusing adult lark, a decided credit to the Television Playhouse.

In Mr. Vidal's play the gentleman from some place else is Mr. Kreton, who doesn't disclose his home planet but merely notes he certainly doesn't come from dreary Mars. He arrives in a flying saucer that contains only a straight chair, not elaborate instrument panels. Electronics, it seems, are for primitives.

Upon landing in the back yard of a news commentator's home, Mr. Kreton, who is attired in the dress of the Civil War period, takes over first the household, then the United States Army and finally "the world organization." He has the power to know what other people are thinking, which proves especially sticky for an Army general accustomed to having a situation m hand Kreton has less luck in penetrating the mind of the world body's secretary general; constant attendance at international conferences has muddled the secretary's thoughts.

Mr. Kreton explains to the earth people that they will not be civilized for a thousand years and will thrive only on violence and savagery. To keep them contented and happy he will start a war and the children may stay up a little late to see the bombing. He is deaf to the entreaties of the earth people, including the general, that they are trying to outgrow war.

In the nick of time another emissary arrives in a saucer. Kreton has broken the rules of some place else; it is forbidden to tamper with the past because the residents of the neighboring planet are descendants of earth people. Poor Mr. Kreton made a mistake and thought he was coming to earth in 1860, not 1960.

Kreton takes his leave somewhat sorrowfully. After all, with a little luck, he might go back into history and restage the Civil War so that this time the South won. But the earth people of today can only face a thoroughly dull existence, just peace and more peace.

Mr. Vidal got across his points of social commentary but never lost his sense of humor and light touch. Much of his dialogue was extremely bright and his characterizations rang true.

As Kreton, Mr. Ritchard was a perfect choice. He lent credibility to the visitor from outer space yet at the same time made his audience feel party to a theatrical romp. Alan Reed caught both the humor and poignancy of the general and Theodore Bickel was persuasively sincere in the small yet vital role of the world organization secretary. Edward Andrews was straightforward as the news commentator.

Mr. Smight's direction was inventive and deft and responsible for many a chuckle in its own right. This was especially apparent in the closing shot of one flying saucer hopping and skipping through the sky with carefree abandon.

Source: Jack Gould, in a review of Visit to a Small Planet in the New York Times, Vol 104, no 35536, May U, 1955, p. 42