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| Company of The Beggar's Opera [1], with Stephen D. Newman (top), Kathleen Widdoes (right), Marilyn Sokol (bottom, center). |
"In Lieu of Reviews"
For background on how this previously
unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and
1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New
York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the
prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the
list at the end of the current entry.
There were two (related) revivals of this work between 1970 and 1975.
[1] THE BEGGAR’S OPERA
[Musical Revival] A:
John Gay; D: Gene Lesser; CH: Elizabeth Keen; S: Robert U. Taylor; C: Carrie F.
Robbins; L: William Mintzer; P: Chelsea Theatre Center of Brooklyn; T: Chelsea
Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB); 3/21/72-4/16/72 (31); McAlpin Rooftop
Theatre (OB); 5/3/72-12/10/72 (224)
A reasonably successful revival of John Gay’s 1728 antiheroic,
classic comic opera about life among the thieves and beggars of London’s
underworld. Gene Lesser’s production underlined the grosser aspects of the
characters’ behavior, with lots of rowdy flesh grabbing, drinking, and general
coarseness, an approach that Julius Novick and John Simon assessed as totally
inappropriate to the author’s intentions.
These critics suggested that Gay sought to satirize the
pretensions of the middle and upper classes by having his rogues and whores
emulate that behavior within their own social substrata. The greater the
characters’ presumed sophistication, the more the obviousness of their coverup
of baser natures. Novick felt the “funkiness is often self-conscious and
hollow,” yet he did enjoy the show as a work of charm and entertainment. Simon
found very little to praise aside from a chance to see the rarely produced
work, whose reputation has been vastly overshadowed by a more famous modern work
it directly influenced, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (1928).
More upbeat reactions came from Clive Barnes (“a positively
joyous and euphoric production”; John Lahr (“a strong, focused production which
succeeds in bringing the flesh back into the frolic. . . . The scenes move
crisply, the actors can be heard, the characters maintain a sense of variety .
. . and the satire on opera is never lost”); and Edith Oliver (“the best production,
hands down, of anything I’ve seen all year. It is the most beautiful, the most
inventive, the most vigorous, and the funniest, and, incidentally, it is
utterly faithful to” the original). The critics selected Stephen D. Newman
(Macheath), Marilyn Sokol (Lucky Lockit), and Kathleen Widdoes (Polly Peachum)
as the prize performers in this period romp. Sokol won an OBIE for
Distinguished Performance, and Widdoes was deemed the winner of a Variety poll for Female Lead, Musical.
There was also unanimous approval for Robert U. Taylor’s
rendering of a wood-planked setting that embodied the Hogarthian world of old
London. The same was true of Carrie F. Robbins’s inspired costumes, soiled and
creased, but indubitably elegant and, for the women, provocative. Her creations
landed her a Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Costume Designer, while Taylor
got one for Outstanding Scene Design.
After its limited run at Brooklyn’s Chelsea, the show moved on
to a commercial Off-Broadway house, the McAlpin Rooftop Theatre, for a longer
run, with a small number of cast changes, including Timothy Jerome replacing
Stephen D. Newman as Macheath and Jill Eikenberry taking over Dolly Trull from
Joan Nelson.
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| Norman Snow, Mary Lou Rosato. |
[2] D: Gene Lesser; CH: Elizabeth Keen; S: Robert Yodice; C:
Carrie F. Robbins; L: Martin Aronstein; P: City Center Acting Company; T: Billy
Rose Theatre; 12/22/73-1/11/74 (8)
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| David Ogden Stiers, Nita Angeletti, Sam Tsoutsouvas. |
Not that long after the above revival closed, another production
of The Beggar’s Opera visited New
York but under the rather unique circumstances of having the same director,
choreographer, and costume designer as the first. This version was part of a
repertory offered during the second season of the Acting Company, a troupe
founded by John Houseman with Julliard graduates that continues to this day. Other plays in the repertory were The Three Sisters, Measure for Measure, Scapin, and Next Time I'll Sing to You. Unhappily, The Beggar's Opera had an
unappealing and dull-looking new set and, despite his ultimate fame and
achievement, a mediocre performance as Macheath by Kevin Kline.
 |
| Kevin Kline, Cynthia Herman. |
Exuberance and talent aplenty were around in the spirited work
of others, however, especially Patti LuPone’s Lucy and David Ogden Stiers’s
Peachum. Others of eventual note in the cast were Benjamin Hendrickson as a
Beggar, Norman Snow as Filch, Mary Lou Rosato as Mrs. Peachum and Betty Coaxer, David Schramm as Wat
Dreary, Mary-Joan Negro as Jenny Diver, and Sam Tsoutsouvas as Lockit. Director
Lesser provided “vigor and a certain Rabelasian bombast” to the proceedings but
the piece “never really took off,” sighed Clive Barnes. John Simon was harsher.
He accused Lesser of repeating himself and said the acting was inadequate for a
Broadway mounting.
Earlier 20th-century revivals in New York of The Beggar’s Opera were in 1920, 1928,
1957, and 1964, each of the first two (one Off Broadway, at the Greenwich
Village Theatre, the other on, at the 48th Street Theatre) running 37
performances.
Previous entries:
Abelard and
Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The
Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel