On Friday night the 47 Workshop presented publicly for the first time "Heaven Helps Him", by Robert Leven. Like the proof of the pudding, the proof of the play lies in the way it is received. And the audience showed their appreciation of Mr. Leven's satire in a manner which would warm the heart of many a better known playwright. Though some might occasionally accuse the author of over caricaturing, yet the people were so well drawn that the pathetic could be seen beneath the gloss of humor.

The problems of the Actopels, an ordinary middle-class family, were always true to life and generally funny. Pa, bent with thirty years of toil, has just been made head bookkeeper at the plant --the heart and soul of Cranetown. Horace, the eldest son, has married and is doing well in the export department, while studying psychology by mail. Dolores, his wife and her mother-in-law's echo, is learning to cook. His brother Gordon is on the eve of realizing his ambition: a Phi Beta Kappa Key at the Mid-State University and a job in the teller's cage at the Cranetown National Bank. Ma Actopel, a sacrificing wife who has seen hard times, now has hopes of ironing out her troubles. There even seems to be a chance of solving the problem of Ruth.

Ruth is the idle, startlingly pretty daughter, whose indolence makes her all the more charming. Raleigh Crane IV, heir to "the works" and back from Oxford is attracted by her, though only just freed from his last affair--that of Kiki of the Odeon. He pursues Ruth and is piqued by her lack of emotional reciprocation.

Then the fun begins. Horace is discharged, for practicing his psychology on his department boss; Mr. Actopel has a nervous breakdown as the result; and Gordon is expelled from college for cheating in an examination. The disruption in the house supplies the necessary push to Ruth. Still languid and emotionally listless, she goes off to White Sulphur Springs with Raleigh.

Of course, there is a happy ending. The pair return, get married, and compel Raleigh Crane Sr. to satisfy the material desires of his in-laws. The excellence of the acting smacked of professionalism. In fact, it would be extremely difficult to pick out anyone who surpassed the rest. The whole cast combined to give the sort of performance seldom seen in amateur circles, but which 47 Workshop audiences have learned to expect.