In the third act of Comes a Day, a young actor named George C. Scott is given a chance to cut loose in a long and furious scene. He starts off quietly, nervously trying to talk around a terrible question that hangs unasked in the air. Some minutes later he is on his knees, beating his fists against the door and screaming "Don't shut me out, don't shut me out!"

Mr. Scott is magnificent--a word not used lightly in these pages. I doubt if there is in nature anyone who would talk and gesture quite as he does; but director Robert Mulligan has wisely refused to force him down to life-size, and on the stage every stroke carries conviction. Bring on the grand old adjectives ("magnificent," above, will serve as a starter) for George C. Scott.

Yes, there is a play surrounding Mr. Scott. It is not bad fun, either, since lively and emphatic family spats are going on almost all the time. However, except for Mr. Scott's setpiece, Comes a Day is badly contrived and badly phrased. Speed Lamkin wrote it, but he appears to have had a good deal of unwitting help. See if you can match up the elements from Comes a Day in Column A below with the plays in which these elements have previously appeared (Column B).* Column A   Column B 1. Mother slaves away all day to support her family, even renting out rooms in the big old house, while improvident father boozes.  a. The Glass Menagerie 2. Mother clutches about her the fading rags of her social pretensions.  b. Picnic 3. Father really loves his children, but he can't communicate with them, can't get through to them.  c. Look Homeward, Angel 4. Beautiful young girl has trouble deciding whether to marry for money or sex.  d. Death of a Salesman

Most of these situations are still effective when well-handled; if that were not the case, serious American drama would practically be wiped out. But Mr. Lamkin's dialogue is spotted with cliches. "And we laughed, oh, how we laughed. We were the happiest people on earth, without a care," and "Talking won't bring it back, Isabel. It's gone, it's gone," are representative samples. Mr. Lamkin writes so well for Mr. Scott that it is difficult to understand how he can write so badly for nearly everyone else. Many of these excrescences will probably be written out; the wonder is that they ever got in.

If Comes a Day had had the sort of actors its merits deserved, the results would be difficult to imagine, though some clues are provided by Arthur O'Connell as drunken father Lawton and Brandon de Wilde as his (overwritten, overdirected) son. The daughter of the Lawton household--a perceptive character study by the way; score one for Mr. Lamkin--wants to marry Mr. Scott's character for his money, but is torn by an enormous letch for a hot water heater salesman. Diana van der Vlis is excellent in this role, and Larry Hagman is good as her stud. Ruth Hammond is conventional but highly competent in a conventional character role.

Judith Anderson plays the star role like a First Lady of the Stage, which for Miss Anderson is nothing new. Her Australian accent is comprehensible once you get used to it, and not inappropriate for the memory-ridden, shabby-genteel matriarch. She projects a genuine grandeur, a sense that no matter what Isabel Lawton does she is somehow worthy of admiration. In cold fact Isabel Lawton is worthy of very little admiration, and Miss Anderson makes her much better worth watching than Mr. Lamkin had any right to expect.

It is her hard luck that Mr. Scott, in a showy and well-conceived part, runs away with the play. Comes a Day, for all its faults, is never dull, and in one brilliant scene Mr. Lamkin and Mr. Scott finally make it powerful. If Boston sees a better performance all year than Mr. Scott's then Boston is one lucky town.

* Answers: 1c; 2a; 3d; 4b.