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| David Selby, Lynn Milgrim. |
ECHOES
[Drama/Hospital/Mental Illness] A: N. Richard Nash; D: Melvin Bernhardt; S: Ed
Wittstein; C: Sara Brook; L: Martin Aronstein; P: Orin Lehman; T: Bijou Theatre
(OB); 3/26/73 (1)
A distressingly muddy, tiresome, symbolic drama about
a pair of schizoid mental patients, Tilda (Lynn Milgrim) and Sam (David Selby),
living in the hell of an insane asylum where they pass their time decorating an
imaginary Christmas tree, among other ways of fantasizing. A third character,
presumably the resident shrink (Paul Tripp), a God-like being called the
Person, appears now and then to converse soundlessly with Sam. Sam makes some
progress and departs, leaving Tilda behind, which is about all the dramatic
movement the play offers.
There was little commiseration for either the
playwright (author of The Rainmaker)
or performers. Clive Barnes renounced the work as “dense” and “murky,” saying
that the writing “meanders along like a bereft pedestrian with a fantasy that
he is really a Rolls-Royce.” Richard Watts called the play “hopelessly
enigmatic,” and Douglas Watt sympathized with an audience that had to sit
through “this exercise in mumbo-jumbo.” Such suffering, fortunately, lasted
only a single night.