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| Zoe Caldwell. |
"In Lieu of Reviews"
Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE
is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre
seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd
like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to
be and what its relationship is 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 entries
beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.
 |
| Stephen Elliott, Bob Dishy, Zoe Caldwell. |
 |
| Bob Dishy, Zoe Caldwell. |
In The
Creation of the World and Other Business Arthur Miller retells the familiar
story of Genesis, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the slaying of Cain and
Abel, while turning it into a philosophical folk comedy vaguely reminiscent of
Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve,
itself the inspiration for several plays.
God (Stephen Elliott), Lucifer (George Grizzard),
Adam (Bob Dishy), Eve (Zoe Caldwell), their progeny (Barry Primus as Cain, Mark Lamos as Abel) and the angels (Lou Gilbert, Dennis Cooley, Lou Polan) had about
them here the air of urban Jewish types, the dialogue had a fair share of
profanities and comical anachronisms, and the content shifted from Broadway
shtick to pseudo-Shavian dialectics. Miller’s groping for profundity was
telegraphed by the interrogative titles of his three acts: “Since God made
Everything and God is Good—Why Did He Make Lucifer”?; “Is There Something in the
Way We Are Born Which Makes Us Want the World to Be Good?”; and “When Every Man
Wants Justice, Why Does He Go on Creating Injustice?”
 |
| George Grizzard, Zoe Caldwell. |
The
Creation of the World, Miller’s
first comedy, had many laugh lines, and some visual amusement was evoked by the
bodysuit costumes, designed by Hal George, simulating nudity, with cartoonish
outlines marking body parts. Still, the play’s ultimate intellectual purposes
seemed cloudy and ill-defined. The author’s struggle to clarify the problems of
good and evil resolved little, serving only to provoke further questions. Clive
Barnes was “disappointed,” but attentive, and Walter Kerr thought the play’s “problems”
of greater interest than its “accomplishments.” John Simon found the language
and humor unacceptable, and deplored the lack of any roles for “a bravura
actor,” while Brendan Gill felt that “one of the great myths by which we live”
had been “reduced to Mr. Miller’s schoolboy level of foolery.”
 |
| Mark Lamos, George Grizzard, Bob Dishy, Zoe Caldwell, Barry Primus. |
The actors’ reviews were, for the most part, quite
favorable, especially those for Grizzard, whose Lucifer was depicted,
ironically, as perhaps the most decent fellow in the play.
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
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
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brief Lives
Brother Gorski
Brothers
Bullshot Crummond
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster
The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part
II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Corner
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
