CHILDREN! CHILDREN!
 |
| Josef Sommer, Elaine Hyman, Gwen Verdon, Elizabeth Hubbard, Dennis Patrick. |
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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| Gwen Verson, Shawn Campbell, Ariane Munker, Johnny Doran. |
Broadway’s
biggest dancing star, Gwen Verdon stumbled in her first non-musical role in this
heavily panned one-night (and 13 previews) disaster. Clive Barnes called it “insulting to the
intelligence,” and “stuffed with “blatant monstrosities” that made it about “as
thrilling as cornflakes on fog.”
Verdon played
Helen Giles, a new babysitter hired to care for the three devilish children (Shawn Campbell, Ariane Munker, and Johnny Doran) of
a wealthy Gramercy Park couple, Philip (Dennis Patrick) and Evelyn Collins (Elizabeth Hubbard), on New Year’s Eve. During the evening, the
harried babysitter is the victim of assorted attempts by her charges to murder
and torture her. One of the kids also is depicted with lesbian tendencies, as
if that further emphasized her evil nature.
The hour and a
quarter drama was a total “letdown” for Richard Watts, an extremely clumsy, “silly”
attempt for Douglas Watt, and less than professional to Martin Gottfried. The
acting of all, said Barnes, was “indescribably bad.” This obviously included
such then well-known thespians as Josef Sommer and Elaine Hyman.
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 Children
The Children
