THE CHILDREN’S MASS
 |
| Courtney Burr, Donald Warfield. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
THE CHILDREN’S MASS [Drama/Crime/Drugs/Homosexuality/Transvestitism] A: Frederick Combs; D: Richard Altman;
S/C: Peter Harvey; L: Roger Morgan; P: Sal Mineo and Robin Archer i/a/w Serpentine
Productions, Ltd. b/s/a/w Lucille Lortel Productions, Inc.; T: Theatre de Lys
(OB); 5/16/73-5/20/73 (7)
New York’s Soho district was the locale for this tawdry drama about
Dutchie (Courtney Burr), a pathetic drag queen, into the full panoply of heavy
drugs, who lives in a loft with a bisexual hustler named Geoffrey (Gary Sandy)
and a heterosexual writer named Jimmy (Kipp Osborne). In the apartment below
are Geoffrey’s alcoholic wife, Millie (Elisabeth Farley), and their two young
kids. The plotless, incident-filled, play culminates in the death of Dutchie
when a junkie (Donald Warfield) he picks up injects them both with heroin and
then carries out a ritualistic stabbing of the transvestite.
The play focuses on the chattering, friendly, campy Dutchie, who
assumes the role of den mother to all the household’s assorted crazies. His
death is meant to evoke great pathos for the loss of so troubled yet worthwhile
an individual.
Clive Barnes found promise in the writing but questioned the
unmotivated slaying and the untidy structure. He liked the documentary realism
of the staging and praised Burr’s performance. Edith Oliver saw “much that is
pretentious and . . . trashy” here but was held by the play because of its
unusual milieu and touch of sympathy. John Simon had only contempt for its
construction, meaning, and performances.
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
Children in the Rain