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| Tally Brown, Sally Kirkland. |
THE JUSTICE BOX [Drama/Crime/France/Homosexuality/Mystery/Politics]
A: Michael Robert David; D: Arthur Alan Seidelman; S/L: John Doepp; C: Patrice
Alexander; M: Basheer Quasar; P: C.K. Alexander b/s/a/w Lucille Lortel
Productions; T: Theatre de Lys (OB); 6/2/71-6/6/71 (7)
The Justice Box was
scheduled to be done at Lincoln Center’s Forum Theatre (now the Mitzi E.
Newhouse), but was cancelled before its opening. One of the actors thereupon
produced it in a commercial mounting where it quickly died a natural death.
It takes place in Paris, where the official executioner
(C.K. Alexander, the producer just referred to), living with his 300-lb.
mistress (Tally Brown), can no longer do the job because of arthritic pain.
Following the assassination of the president and the arrest of the killer
(Jerome Dempsey), radical students rise in opposition to the use of capital
punishment for the crime. Their leader is the nephew (Michael Proccacino) of
the executioner. A sinister government official (Michael Lipton) talks him into
1) meeting the president’s daughter (Sally Kirkland), 2) meeting the assassin,
and 3) toting around the guillotine blade in an attaché case. The daughter
reveals her hatred of her late father, the assassin is a homosexual who killed
the president because of a sexual grudge, and the young man agrees in the end
to carry out the execution himself.
John Beaufort claimed the play got “lost in digressions and
irrelevancies.” Edith Oliver said “it deserved no better than it got.” Mel
Gussow felt it needed “sharpening,” but Martin Gottfried considered it “fascinating.”