146. ELIZABETH I. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Ruby Lynn Reyner, Herve Villechaize, Donald Forrest, Penelope Windust.

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ELIZABETH I [Comedy/Biographical/England/Period/Politics] A: Paul Foster; D: John-Michael Tebelak; S: Robert Anton; C: Susan Tsu; L: Roger Morgan; M: David Sheridan Spangler; P: Edgar Lansbury, Stuart Duncan, and Joseph Beruh; T: Lyceum Theatre; 4/5/72-4/8/72 (5)

Herve Villechaize, Penelope Windust, (rear) Jeanette Lanids, Jeff Chandler.

A confusing attempt to suggest a performance of a revisionist play about Queen Elizabeth I by a traveling company of Elizabethan actors working on a trestle stage. The plot veers from scenes concerning the actors and their world to sections of the play-within-the-play. A far more respected play about the Virgin Queen, Robert Bolt’s Vivat! Vivat! Regina, was produced the same season, starring Eileen Atkins.

This “repellent . . . mishmash” was “ill-written, ill-composed, ill-directed, ill-designed, and ill-costumed,” wrote Brendan Gill. It required another director “to make order out of chaos,” added Clive Barnes. Michael Smith defended the work for its “lively humor, . . . [and] verbal exuberance.” However, the opinion of critics like Douglas Watt (“a kind of apotheosis of the amateur spirit”) and Martin Gottfried (“a disaster”) prevailed. Among the actors who eventually gained recognition were Penelope Windust and Herve Villechaize (of TV’s “Fantasy Island”).