Star Quality

by Noel Coward.

Doubleday $3.00.

Four of these six stories have to do with acting folk, and the settings are London, Hollywood, a transatlantic airliner, and an islet in the Pacific. Coward’s brand of sophistication — his insistently brittle tone and rather obvious cleverness — seems as quaintly old-fashioned today in the short-story form as his narrative technique, with its conventional “twists” and its fondness for “sock” curtain lines. And Coward’s shallowness and sentimentality are more obtrusive in the short story than on the stage. He is still, however, a pretty reliable hand at lightweight entertainment.