DREYFUS IN REHEARSAL
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| Tovah Feldshuh, Peter Kastner, Allan Arbus, Ruth Gordon, Anthony Holland, Harry Davis, Sam Levene, Avery Schreiber. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| Allan Arbus, Tovah Feldshuh, Peter Kastner. |
DREYFUS IN REHEARSAL [Comedy-Drama/French/Jews/Poland/Politics/Theatre] A: Jean-Claude
Grumberg; AD/D: Garson Kanin; S: Boris Aronson; C: Florence Klotz; L: Jennifer
Tipton; P: David Merrick; T: Ethel Barrymore Theatre; 10/17/74-10/26/74 (12)
In 1931 Vilna, Poland, a group of
amateur Jewish actors have foregone their usual fare of light, sentimental
comedy and music to rehearse a new play by their young director, Michael (Peter
Kastner), about Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the 19th-century Jewish military
officer who was sent to prison by the French government in an infamous case of
anti-Semitic injustice. Oblivious to the growing threat of anti-Semitism around
them, the actors are unable to fathom the reason for doing this play about a
half-forgotten event that seems to bear little relevance to their lives.
 |
| Avery Schreiber, Sam Levene, Ruth Gordon. |
When a couple of Jew-hating drunks
break into and disrupt the dress rehearsal, their eyes begin to open. Though
the show has been rehearsed and costumes and sets completed, the play will
never be given. Michael leaves for Warsaw to join the worker’s party, a young
couple moves to Berlin (England seemed too dangerous), and the remaining actors
return to doing conventional Yiddish sketches.
Dreyfus in Rehearsal, originally written in French, had been a success in Paris, but its
Broadway production flopped, despite encouraging words from several critics The
promising central argument was about whether Jews should be more assertive in
defending their human rights (Zionism was offered as a meaningful alternative)
or should assimilate complacently into the background, not make waves, and
expect a little persecution part of their existence. It was, though, too,
shallowly explored for most reviewers.
Douglas Watt thought the approach was “painfully
obvious,” and Edwin Wilson noted that “the revelations and insights were are
led to expect . . . never come to pass.” A few, like John Simon, felt the fault
lay with Garson Kanin’s “Seventh Avenue adaptation” and production than with
the original play.
The company performed the work as an
old-fashioned Jewish sentimental comedy, with everyone contributing Yiddish
accents and stereotyped characterizations. Clive Barnes found the effect “funny,
touching and warm-hearted,” and Watt thought it was “easy to believe in them,”
but others ridiculed the lack of ensemble and the flatness of the staging.
Responses to such popular veterans as Sam Levene and Ruth Gordon (Kanin’s wife)
as a pair of elderly actors were mixed—many found them too mannered—but Tovah
Feldshuh as a young actress received excellent notices. She also won the Outer
Critics Circle Award for Notable Performance by a Young Player, which also
recognized her contributions that season for Rodgers and Yentl the Yeshivah Boy.
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
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the
World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano
Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with
Me
A Day in the Life of
Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The
Desert Song
Diamond
Studs
Different
Times
The Dirtiest
Show in Town
The
Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It
Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s
House (2)
Don Juan
Don
Juan in Hell
Don’t
Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
Don’t
Call Back
Don’t
Play Us Cheap!
Drat!
The
Dream on Monkey Mountain
A Dream
Out of Time