CHILDREN OF THE WIND
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| Barry Goss, James Callahan, Sarah Hardy. |
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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| James Callahan, Sarah Hardy. |
CHILDREN OF THE WIND [Drama/Alcoholism/Childhood/Family/Period/Theatre]
A: Jerry Devine; D: Shepard Traube; S/L: Leo Kerz; C: Sara Brook; P: Shepard
Traube and Buff Cobb; T: Belasco Theatre; 10/24/73-10/27/73 (6)
A clichéd drama
set in the 1930s, about an alcoholic actor, Daniel A. Brophy (James Callahan),
separated for two years from his wife, Kitty (Sarah Hardy), and son, John (Barry
Goss), but about to make a career breakthrough in an important Broadway role.
He assembles his family at his shabby theatrical boardinghouse and promises to provide for
them in the future, a promise he can never redeem.
Shortly after
his opening, he hits the bottle again and returns to his lodgings a sodden
wreck. At the end, the lighting focuses on his 10-year-old son, who is himself
beginning a promising career as a child actor and, presumably, is based on playwright
Jerry Devine himself, seen in autobiographical perspective. Devine’s IMDb
credits show him appearing in a movie as early as 1920, when he was 12.
Richard Watts
called Children of the Wind “one of
the most dreadful dramatic attempts of the season,” and Douglas Watt dubbed the
“grubby play” “a loser.” According to the consensus, it had a hackneyed story,
an unpleasant central character, dull dialogue, tired direction, uneven
construction, and a lack of energy.
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
The Children's Mass
Children of the Wind
Children in the Rain
The Children's Mass
Children of the Wind
