Iris Murdoch's gifts were not particularly well-suited for the theatre, but if you are a Murdoch "complete-ist" like I am, you will want to see what she could do when writing original plays for the London stage.

I would give only two stars for "The Servants and the Snow," which reads like a take-off on Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night." "The Three Arrows" is better and more interesting, "three stars," in part because it is fascinating to see Murdoch setting her favored "existential" themes of love, violence, and destiny in the mythic Japan of samurai culture. ( )