Players in a Game [aka "Play With Fire"]

New York: Dramatists Play Service. Near Fine. (c.1989). Unstated edition. Softcover. [very light smudging at top of front cover, minor soiling to rear cover; otherwise clean and unmarked]. (B&W photo frontispiece) A lesser-known work by ths American writer, who made his name in live TV drama in the 1950s, then segued into a somewhat fitful screenwriting career -- but whose name is probably most strongly associated with the hit 1966 musical "Man of La Mancha," for which he wrote the libretto, which was derived from his own 1959 television play "I, Don Quixote." This play, an anti-totalitarian piece set in Prague in the year 1316, was "suggested by an actual event as dramatized in the Czech language by Oldrich Danek" (that work, entitled "I Shall Return to Prague," had in fact been banned in that city). Although this printing bears only a 1989 copyright date, the first (and possibly only) production (for which the cast list, including Victor Buono and Carrie Snodgress, is printed herein) was actually mounted way back in 1978, at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles, under the title "Play With Fire." The one review I was able to find (from The Los Angeles Times) was uncomplimentary, stating that it "tries several things at once and never quite decides which one it means to be: a comedy, a straight dramatic play, a satire, a musical, a mini-'La Mancha' (those overtones are strongest) or all of the above." Whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry on Wasserman seems to have been unaware of the 1978 staging, making reference to the play (under the title used here) as being included with some "fine and thought-provoking work [that was] ready to be produced" at the time of his death in 2008. .