Eighteen months after its original Boston opening, pulling into the Hub for the last week of its existence, Maurice Evans' so-called G.I. version of the great English tragedy is incomparably closer to achieving its original objective than it was when it opened in 1945. What makes the difference in this strangely improved production is the supporting cast, which has undergone a complete transformation since the opening. Gone are the foreign accents, the faltering diction, the awkward pace of the original Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius; in their place an almost perfect supporting trio has appeared. As the queen, Doris Lloyd gives a performance which is remarkable for its interpretation of a difficult role; Henry Edwards keeps up a distinctly superior standard as the unsympathetic Claudius; and Miles Mallcson, as Polonius, steals every scene in which he appears. Other lesser roles are well filled, too, with only Philip Foster as Horatio and Nelson Leigh as the Ghost declining toward the mediocre.

Whether Evans himself comes off so well beside his refurbished cast is a debatable point. In the incomparable conversational scenes he carries the counterpoint off very well, the satiric and comic lines coming through especially effectively. In the soliloquies, however, the incredible monotony of Evans' style, his constant reliance on purely vocal effects rather than any real acting techniqque, and the annoyingly false diction which leads him to pronounce words like "force" as "fawwwce" all begin to annoy.

It is also important to recognize that this "G.I. Hamlet" is a dramatic but certainly not an artistic success. The bad taste of the Edwardian costumes remains apparent, and the music has hit a new low in Shakespearian efforts-an organ which reeks (literally) of Our Gal Sunday. The total effect of the production is, justifiably, an intended speeding-up and modernizing; only the bad taste which croops in occasionally and the inevitable shortcomings of Evans himself drag it down.