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| James Broderick, Sandy Dennis. |
LET ME HEAR YOU SMILE
[Comedy/Childhood/Marriage] A: Leonard Thuna and Harry Cauley; D: Harry Cauley;
D: Harry Cauley; S: Peter Larkin; C: Carrie F. Robbins; L: Neil Peter Jampolis;
P: Michael and Barclay Macrae; T: Biltmore Theatre; 1/16/73 (1)
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| Sandy Dennis, James Broderick. |
Let Me Hear You Smile “was pointless, sad and totally unmemorable,” grieved Clive Barnes over this one-night catastrophe starring Broadway notables Sandy Dennis and James Broderick (Matthew’s dad). Douglas Watt referred to it as “static” and “foolish.” “[M]ild and placid, never offensive but emphatically not stimulating,” was Richard Watts’s gentle opinion, while Martin Gottfried, who found some redeeming virtues in it, ultimately had to dispose of the play as unfunny and confusingly staged.
Dennis and Broderick played a couple seen first in their
late 30s, then as prepubescent kids, and finally as old folks. In the first
act, the pay treats the wife’s difficulty with facing her 40th birthday
and her threatening to leave home and husband. In Act Two, the first-grade
children reveal their growing awareness of sex and their fear of moving into
the second grade. In the third, the aged husband, having sold his hardware
store, wants to move to New Zealand, but his wife objects.
Broderick’s acting was liked, and Dennis was, as often,
chastised for her mannerisms but appreciated nonetheless for her quirky comic
charms. A third actor involved was Paul B. Price.