DON’T BOTHER ME, I CAN’T COPE
 |
| Bobby Hill, Micki Grant. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| Hope Clark, Bobby Hill, Micki Grant, Arnold Wilkerson, Alex Bradford. |
DON’T BOTHER ME, I CAN’T COPE [Revue/Race] M/L: Micki Grant; D: Vinnette Carroll; CH:
George Faison; S: Richard A. Miller; C: Edna Watson; L: B.J. Sammler; P: Edward
Padula and Arch Lustberg in Vinnette Carroll’s Urban Arts Corps Production; T:
Playhouse Theatre; 4/19/72-10/17/74 (1,065)
Micki Grant’s soul music revue, first
seen in several Off-Off Broadway theatres, as well as around the country on
tour by the Urban Arts Corps, arrived on Broadway in an expanded version that
became a smash hit. Grant wrote the show and starred in it. The critics felt
she should have been onstage even more than she was, so warm and appealing did
they find her presence. The songs and dances were on a variety of black themes,
the overall idea being a plea for racial tolerance.
“It is fresh, fun and black,” wrote
Clive Barnes, who equated it with “a flamenco show” and described it as “a
mixture of a block party and a revival meeting.” Grant’s music was “delightfully
varied and melodic, and her lyrics, whether stirring or tender or funny, are
always ingenious,” noted Edith Oliver. “It is proud without boast; it chides
but does not rail. . . . It possesses strength without menace. . . . It is
entirely healthy,” commented Harold Clurman. Its “witty and intelligent lyrics”
and “melodiously winning” music sparked a show that was “a love offering to the
Creator and creation,” applauded T.E. Kalem.
Reservations, however, emerged from
the pen of John Simon, who quibbled: “Don’t
Bother Me is a harmless, well-meaning, enthusiastic Negro musical . . .
that runs the gamut from hokum to humdrum.” Despite its “dignified militancy” being
appealingly “tempered with judiciousness,” the show couldn’t rise above “simplistic
and repetitious” tunes, and Grant’s smugness as a performer. Walter Kerr was
even more negative, complaining about the show’s non-book format, banal lyrics,
and lack of variety.
The show’s buoyant energy impressed
most viewers, though, and George Faison’s simple choreographic inventions,
Vinnette Carroll’s fluid and inventive staging, and Alex Bradford’s powerful
singing and gospel choir were greatly admired. The show hauled in many honors
including Tony nominations for Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, and Best
Director. Grant also won an OBIE for Distinguished Performance, and Drama Desk
Awards for Outstanding Performance and Most Promising Lyricist. Alex Bradford
also got an OBIE for Distinguished Performance.
Previous entries:
Abelard and Helo/ise
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
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano
Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with
Me
A Day in the Life of
Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The
Desert Song
Diamond
Studs
Different
Times
The Dirtiest
Show in Town
The
Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It
Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s
House (2)
Don Juan
Don
Juan in Hell
