CHILDREN IN THE RAIN
Elizabeth Harryman, Jock O'Neill, Frank R. Giordano. For unexplained reasons, O'Neill is pictured in the character credited to Lane Smith.
"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 If you'd like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to be and what its relationship is to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and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.
CHILDREN IN THE RAIN [Drama/Drugs/Homosexuality/Theatre/Youth] A: Dennis McIntyre; S: Patrick Donovan; P: James Clifford Productions; T: Cherry Lane Theatre (OB); 10/2/70 (1)
A structurally loose slice-of-life drama about three actors who take refuge in an abandoned theatre during a rainstorm, set up a picnic on the stage, and take drugs, going from pot to acid. Max (Lane Smith) is a failed actor and painter; Twig (Elizabeth Harryman) is a famous actress married to Max; and Gibbs (Frank Giordano) is a dancer, who turns out to be gay.
As the trio becomes stoned, each begins to release a flood of secrets—including Gibbs’s thing for Max—and it all ends with Twig being killed by her spouse. During the proceedings the actors toss food around, paint each other with ketchup, and talk endlessly. On opening night, at one point, a pickle landed in the face of a critic’s husband. At another moment, one of the actors slipped in the onstage potato salad and fell off the platform into a critic’s lap.
The rambling purposelessness of the play offended one and all. Dick Brukenfeld was typical when he assailed the work as “painfully close” to being “the worst play” he had ever seen. Martin Gottfried described it as “a childish play,” overwritten and underclear, not very sure of what it is about or where it means to go.” Playwright Dennis McIntyre would eventually overcome this setback with more effective plays, including Modigliani and Split Second.
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!