Timing is everything. Some of the post-opening night press list smarties wisecracked that "The Speed of Darkness" is the "best new play of 1952." True enough; the moral spine of Steve Tesich's play recalls the didactic dramas of Arthur Miller. Actually, with its several slowly unraveling plot secrets, key moments told by a narrator, and a few bad scraps of dialogue that sound like a translation from the Norwegian, "The Speed of Darkness" seems more like one of Ibsen's "problem plays." Tesich's old-fashioned approach to modern troubles is a curious one, resulting in a brooding melodrama that will not sit well today with either...