CRYSTAL AND FOX
 |
| Rue MClanahan, Jo Anne Belanger, Chet Carlin, Will Hare. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
CRYSTAL AND FOX [Drama/Irish/Marriage/Show
Business] A: Brian Friel; D: Patrick Conlon; S: Philip Gilliam, Jennifer von
Mayrhauser; L: Judy Rasmuson; M: Ted Auletta: P: Sheila Conlon; T: McAlpin
Rooftop Theatre (OB); 4/23/73-5/13/73 (24)
Dublin and Los
Angeles saw this play by Irish playwright Brian Friel before New York did, but
not many in the latter city got to see it during its brief run following poor
notices.
Crystal and Fox deals with Fox (Will
Hare), the aging, self-destructive leader of a troupe of barnstorming Irish
entertainers who feels alienated and dissatisfied with the nature of his
company’s work and his sense of what his life has amounted to. H proceeds to
tear the troupe apart, poisoning a dog that is used in an animal act, insulting
and dismissing members of his troupe, ridding himself of their wagons, and
finally driving away his wife, Crystal (Rue McClanahan). Alone, he hopes that,
perhaps, as Walter Kerr said, “Greatness will rush in” to fill the void has
willfully created.
There were too
many melodramatic devices in the plotting, according to Clive Barnes, and the
character of Fox was incompletely drawn. Kerr took the latter point as his
chief argument, expressing the opinion that Fox had the makings of an
archetypal individual but lacked the “amplitude” this would have required. To
John Simon, Fox’s behavior was “sudden, arbitrary and schematic,” making the
man “a boor and a bore.” There were few positive comments about the production,
Simon calling it “visually tacky and histrionically bankrupt.”
Rue McClanahan
later scored a huge success on TV’s “Golden Girls.” One of the minor characters
was played by Brad Davis, who later gained fame on screen for Midnight Express.
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 Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the
World and Other Business
Creeps
Crown Matrimonial
The Crucible
The Crucible