CLARENCE DARROW
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| Henry Fonda. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
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| Henry Fonda. |
CLARENCE DARROW [Drama/Biographical/Law/Period/Solo]
A: David W. Rintels; SC: Irving Stone’s biography, Clarence Darrow for the Defense; D: John Houseman; S/L: H.R.
Poindexter; P: Mike Merrick and Don Gregory; T: Helen Hayes Theatre;
3/26/74-4/23/74 (22); Return engagement: 3/3/75-3/22/75 (18)
David Rintel’s one-man play about the great American trial lawyer,
Clarence Darrow, was a resounding success in this unavoidably limited
engagement production starring film icon Henry Fonda. Working in H.R.
Poindexter’s law book-filled set of ramps and platforms suggesting courtroom,
home, and office, Fonda journeyed through the attorney’s fascinating life, from
youth and school (only a year of college and another of law school) to the beginnings
of his practice as a defender of radical causes.
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| Henry Fonda. |
Many of Darrow’s famous trials were touched on, including the Scopes “monkey”
trial and the Leopold and Loeb murder case. The acting and direction skillfully
conjured up all the nonvisible participants with barely any awkwardness
apparent.
Rintel’s drama was a fine vehicle for the tour de force artistry of
Fonda, a performance that mesmerized by the honesty, depth, and insight it
brought to the depiction of a still-remembered legal hero. “The performance is
perfect,” was Walter Kerr’s assessment of the actor, who captured Darrow's look with a flap of hair plastered to his forehead, suspenders, shirtsleeves, and wire-rimmed glasses. Clive Barnes urged “everyone, man,
woman and child interested in justice and America to see this play.”
The production was cut short by Fonda’s illness but he returned a year
later for more performances. Rintels won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New
Playwright and Fonda was nominated for a Best Actor in a Play Tony.
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 of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part
II,
The Circle
