Exactly what the style, type, and manner of "The Pirate" were meant to be, its three acts could not quite decide. For in his latest "extravaganza" S. N. Behrman has put together an incongruous conglomeration of purposes and a complete lack of originality which even occasionally witty repartee, lavish production, and the adequate acting of Lunt and Fontanne cannot rescue.

The play begins with a good deal of fun in a fantasy of color and character. The elements of a scanty plot are dispensed with immediately, but from there on everyone, especially the author, seems confused. Is it a comedy of manners, a bedroom farce, a philosophic romance, or a static vaudeville show? Unfortunately, it winds up with what looks too much like a prolonged curtain call. The dialogue, on which most of S. N. Behrman's plays depend, is laborious in its humor, forced in its numerous modern references, and "stuck in" like the book of a musical comedy. Songs and dances, stereotyped operetta characters, a gaudily colored scene, and some extraneous fill-in material complete this similarity with a musical.

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne breeze through the lines with their usual versatility, assisted by a consistently good company. Playing the leader of a troupe of players with the same, vivacity that won him acclaim in "Amphitryon 38," Mr. Lunt is agile and amusing. He brightens up the stage with his flourishes and his tricks, spinning back and forth, "like a top." Miss Fontanne is demure and lovely as the romantic wife of a prosaic husband. Jack Smart excels as the dull West Indian Babbitt with the tyrannical past of a pirate.

"The Pirate" has been produced and directed in true motion picture style, even down to the final clinch--with the right man. Brilliant color was splashed across the stage in the scenery and costumes of nineteenth century West Indies. Several imaginative mechanical devices, along with the panorama of color, attempt to liven up the pace. But color cannot move a stationary figure, nor brighten a static line. Bravura in production must have support in the script, and Mr. Behrman has let everyone down.