HOTEL UNIVERSE
Cheery bunch. But this bleak vision of life belongs to Philip Barry, best known for such lighthearted comedies as The Philadelphia Story and Holiday. Although nearly forgotten today, Barry was one of America’s leading playwrights in the first half of this century, largely because of the success of his comedies.
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That is the gimmick, the deus ex machina, that allows the psychodramas to occur. First Tom and Pat become little boys again. Tom thinks he has leprosy like Father Damien, a Catholic priest who contracted the disease while working in a leper colony. Norman, who is Jewish, steps back into time with them and is promptly accused of being a Christ killer. Ann plays the role of Pat’s mother and coaxes out of him the grief and the guilt he feels over a lost love. Later, the two of them engage in another flashback and return to Westbury Road, where they met and fell in love with each other years earlier.
