Richard Vetere fancifully plays with the notion that young Captain Hale was in fact a deserter and running home to mom when he was captured by the British in 1776...the play is alternately jocular and tender in dramatizing the reluctant leap to heroism of a soldier who plays every game in the book to avoid being hanged as a spy. Hale hates the war, wants nothing of heroism and rebuffs the fervor of a beautiful rebel spy sent by Gen. Washington to coax him into sacrificing his life for the great symbol his death would serve to the rest of the desperate American troops. But then under pressure from the British to betray the rebels and save his hide, Hale proves no traitor and courageously goes to the gallows. That it's the young who do the dying in wars is part of the playwright's unstressed message. Vetere has fashioned the story of a great hero with a refreshing veneer of cynicism. (L.A. Times) One int. set.