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| Phil Silvers, Bernice Massi. |
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 and numerical order.
HOW THE OTHER HALF
LOVES [Comedy/British/Marriage/Sex] A: Alan Ayckbourn; D: Gene Saks; S:
David Mitchell; C: Winn Morton; L: Peggy Clark; P: Michael Myerberg, Peter
Bridge, and Eddie Kulukundis i/a/w Lawrence Shubert Lawrence; T: Royale
Theatre; 3/29/71-6/26/71 (104)
 |
| Sandy Dennis, Jeanne Hepple. |
How the Other Half
Loves was the first in a series of Alan Ayckbourn’s popular British
comedies and farces to appear in New York. Unlike Broadway’s productions of his
later, plays (several of them substantial hits), this one made the egregious
error of shifting characters and locale to the United States, thus
obliterating, among other things, the built-in class distinctions that are so
crucial to the humor in such works. Even a company with Sandy Dennis, Phil
Silvers, and Richard Mulligan couldn’t make the transformation from British to
American contexts work.
The conventional adultery plot concerns a businessman, Frank
Foster (Phil Silver), whose wife, Fiona (Bernice Massi), has spent the night
with a married neighbor, Bob Phillips (Richard Mulligan), who is also an
employee of Foster’s. The guilty couple try to explain their behavior to their
respective spouses—Sandy Dennis played Bob’s wife, Teresa—by enlisting a third
couple, William and Mary Detweiler (Tom Aldredge and Jeanne Hepple)—who are
primed to agree to a tale about the guilty pair having been with them,
obtaining counsel about their respective marital problems.
Ayckbourn’s fascination with theatrical tomfoolery was
reflected in having the same interior setting representing the homes of both
central couples, with the action for some scenes taking place in both homes
simultaneously. Credibility and clarity were strained by the device, however. Especially
when, using a cross-shaped table, a pair of dinner parties were given with the
same guests present, as if on two consecutive evenings.
The actors—apart from Dennis—labored in vain to make the
material click, but the critical reactions were mostly downbeat. To Richard
Watts, it was “a singularly heavy-handed and stubbornly unamusing attempt at
wild fun-making,” and Douglas Watt dismissed it as “too witless, improbable and
flat . . . for Broadway at its most charitable.”
Silvers was considered miscast but Dennis scored highly. “A
delectable scatterbrain, she appears to be permanently stalled somewhere
between bed and breakfast. Sandy is one of life’s winning losers. Her eyes
imply that the tear ducts were installed first, and her voice box quivers with
a heart broken in transit. Perhaps she is every father’s illusion of a
vulnerable daughter,” applauded T.E. Kalem.