THE DANCE OF DEATH (2 productions)
 |
| Rip Torn, Viveca Lindfors. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
1.
THE DANCE OF DEATH
[Dramatic
Revival] A: August Strindberg; TR: Paul Avila Mayer; D: Alfred Ryder; S/L: Leo Kerz; C: Marjorie Slaiman; P: Leo Kerz,
Allan Pepper, and Stanley Snadowsky; T: Ritz Theatre; 4/28/71-5/1/71 (5)
Strindberg’s
painful 1900 drama about the love-hate relationship of an overbearing military
officer, Edgar (Rip Torn), married for 25 years to a shrewish ex-actress, Alice
(Viveca Lindfors), set on a Swedish island fortress once used as a prison, was
given an eccentric Broadway revival in which the leading players—both famous
stars—emphasized the play’s black humor. They did so to such a degree that
Michael Feingold thought it came “very close to farce.” A number of critics
shook their fingers at Torn and Lindfors for their freewheeling histrionics,
though admitting that the play’s inherent power emerged nonetheless.
The play had
been cut considerably, leading to a controversy regarding critical
dissatisfaction with the stars’ final version by translator-adaptor Paul Avila
Mayer, who claimed that they had revised the work without his consent. Among
the most serious excisions was the removal from the second half of the couple’s
children. At any rate, the revival of this play, which, inexplicably, seems to
be revived with some frequency, last so briefly that few interested spectators
got the chance to judge the merits of the debate.
Others involved
were Michael Strong as Kurt and Robert O’Herron as the Lieutenant.
 |
| Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Zoe Caldwell. |
2.
D: A.J. Antoon;
TR: Elizabeth Spriggs; AD: A.J. Antoon; S: Santo Loquasto; C: Theoni V.
Aldredge; L: Ian Calderon; P: New York Shakespeare Festival; T: Vivian Beaumont
Theatre; 4/4/74-5/5/74 (37)
The half-decade’s
second revival of The Dance of Death was
produced by Joseph Papp during the first season of his New York Shakespeare
Festival’s habitation at Lincoln Center. It arrived after the company had begun
with three new plays. As often, it met with little critical affection. Director
A.J. Antoon’s version, like the one that preceded it, also made heavy cuts,
especially in the second half, thus concentrating on Edgar (Robert Shaw), Alice
(Zoe Caldwell), and Alice’s cousin, Kurt (Hector Elizondo). Again, the play was
dominated by actors of renown.
Like Alfred
Ryder, Antoon went for a farcical approach rather than a searing examination of
conjugal relations. Even though Strindberg’s potentially harrowing play brings
with it a number of laughs, this version sought in every way to find new
comical bits, such as having Kurt greet Alice after 15 years by tossing her on
a couch and playfully biting her thigh “It is all like something Alan Arkin
might have designed for a play by Jules Feiffer,” quarreled Walter Kerr. The
effect led to an imbalance in tone that made the drama uncomfortable to sit
through. Kerr thought the interpretation insensitive, while Clive Barnes
accused Antoon of letting his comic approach get “somewhat out of hand.”
Barnes pointed
to many places where Antoon had ignored the author’s stage directions, such as
when Edgar is instructed to leave the stage while patting a cat in his arms,
and how these omissions diluted the effect. John Simon assailed the director’s “impudence
and dumbness” for updating the text and attempting to do ineptly what Durrenmatt’s
Play Strindberg had done so well.
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
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The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster
The Cage
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Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
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The Caretaker
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Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
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II,
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The Constant Wife
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