Saturday, June 6, 2020

142. DYLAN. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

DYLAN
 
Rue McClanahan,. Dylan Thomas
"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 If you'd like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to be and what its relationship is to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and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.

DYLAN [Dramatic Revival] A: Sidney Michaels; D: Lee D. Sankowich; S: John Scheffler; C/L: Andrew Greenhut; P: Joseph Rhodes, Marty Richards, and Martin Edelman; T: Mercer-O’Casey Theatre (OB); 2/7/72-3/19/72 (48)

Sidney Michaels’s 1964 biographical play about the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was given its first New York revival (other than Off-Off Broadway) in this Greenwich Village mounting. Inevitably, reviewers recalled its original, in which British star Alec Guinness scored a personal triumph.

Will Hare’s performance was liked by critics such as Clive Barnes and Dick Brukenfeld, who wrote that Hare outdid his predecessor: “Will Hare is Dylan, a glowing, garrulous, gargoyle of a man.” Edith Oliver, however, was unmoved, and John Simon called the performance “perfectly disastrous. . . . Thomas once described a line of verse by . . . Vernon Watkins as ‘a long, gray, weeping sausage’; Hare’s Dylan is a squat, gray, yelping weenie.”

The company included such notable names as Rue McClanahan (who often appeared with Hare), Carleton Carpenter, Delphi Lawrence, Joanna Miles, and Karen Gorney.

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
Dreyfus in Rehearsal
Dude: The Highway Life
The Duplex
The Dybbuk (2) and “Priscilla, Princess of Power”