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| Mary Lou Rosato, Cynthia Herman, Dakin Matthews, David Ogden Stiers. |
Note: Several entries beginning with the letter H were inadvertently overlooked when their turn came to be posted. They are now being posted, albeit belatedly and out of alphabetical order.
THE HOSTAGE Dramatic Revival] A: Brendan Behan. D: Gene Lesser; S: Douglas W. Schmidt; C:
Carrie F. Robbins; L: Joe Pacitti; P: City Center Acting Company; T: Good
Shepherd-Faith Church; 10/9/72-10/28/72 (8)
Brendan Behan’s 1958 comi-tragic picture of Irish political
unrest, which came to New York in 1960, was given its third revival in this
version produced in repertory with five other plays by the young and new City
Center Acting Company (as the Acting Company was then called). This was a troupe
of traveling players founded by John Houseman with recent graduates of
Juilliard’s School of Drama. The other plays then in their ambitious repertoire were The School for Scandal, U.S.A., Women Beware Women, The Lower Depths, and Next Time I'll Sing to You.
It was a valiant attempt, but beyond their still not fully
professional abilities to manage. The play’s political themes, once capable of
being laughed at (I saw in 1960 and can still recall laughing hysterically),
now verged on the somber in light of recent North Irish-British problems.
Filled with boisterous high-jinx and music hall turns, Behan’s
play was well staged and conceived, but the uneven company couldn’t rise to the
occasion. Among its members were such future well-known players as Benjamin
Hendrickson, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, Dakin Matthews, Mary Joan Negro, Mary
Lou Rosato, David Schramm, Norman Snow, Cynthia Herman, David Ogden Stiers, and Sam
Tsoutsouvas. As reported, their accents were unconvincing and they lacked the
comic brio needed for this “ramshackle affair,” as John Simon phrased it. Behan’s
play, now seen as weak-jointed, was simply not a good choice for the struggling
young company, a company, however, that still exists, after all these years.