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| Ray Goulding, Bob Elliott. |
"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unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and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.
BOB AND RAY—THE TWO
AND ONLY
[Comedy Revue/Topical] A: Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding; D: Joseph Hardy; S:
William Ritman; L: Thomas Skelton; P: Joseph I. and Johnna Levine i/a/w Hy
Saporta; T: John Golden Theatre: 9/24/70-2/13/71 (158)
Famed
TV and radio comedians Bob and Ray had a considerable success with this evening
of eccentric character dialogues, many of them cast as interviews in broadcast
style. Performing on a stage cluttered with a vast assortment of eye-catching
junk, very little of it actually used in the program, they struck several
reviewers’ funny bones with a resounding whack.
Walter
Kerr, setting aside their narrow range, loved the incisiveness of their wit,
calling them “very, very, very funny men, interchangeably and surreptitiously.”
“I think they are fresh, charming, and original light comedians of impeccable
taste,” wrote Richard Watts. This was “one of the zaniest shows to hit town in
many a season,” offered Clive Barnes, although he said their material was “not
cutting enough for satire.”
But
John Simon tore the pair apart as “two near vacuums . . . a monochord scraped
by two bows.” He continued: “[T]hey are by current standards of even minimal intelligence,
unfunny,” particularly as their humor lacks honest foundations." Like Simon, John
Lahr and Julius Novick could not have been more bored.
Previous entries:
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 oAf Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L.
Mencken
Blood
Blue Boys