 |
| Elizabeth Ashley, Carmen Mathews, Richard Mulligan. |
 |
| Margaret Linn, Carol Kane, Alek Primrose, Louis Turenne, Eileen Kearney. |
Ring Round the Bathtub,
originally produced at Houston’s Alley Theatre, was about the Trains, a
Depression-era, Irish-American, Chicago family, their boorish, argumentative,
misanthropic Republican father, Dan (Richard Mulligan); attractive, activist,
Democratic mother, Maggie (Elizabeth Ashley); and their kids. Said Mel Gussow: “If
better written, the play might be considered warm and affectionate. Instead it
is, at its best, modestly appealing.” The play brought to mind other,
far more effective ones, about colorful families seen through the haze of
nostalgia, like Ah, Wilderness!, Life With Father, and Hogan's Goat.
 |
| Cathleen Maguire, Louis Turenne. |
Dad loses his fireman’s job as a result of mm’s support of a
Democratic politician. One of the children, Darcy (Eileen Kearney), a
12-year-old girl with a knack for writing jingles, applies to the Chicago Times to have her family
recognized as a needy case. This serves only to further enrage the tyrannical
father and bring on the sentimental climax.
Gussow noted that “The title is from one of the mother's
commandments to her children: Thou shalt not leave a ring around the bath tub.
Like much else in this play, the image has a greater significance for the
playwright than it has for the audience.”
This warmed-over, clearly autobiographical play by a very
successful advertising executive was turned down by almost every critic,
eliciting such dismissals as Brendan Gill’s: “The author . . . is without the
slightest trace of talent as a writer.” A second performance was not
forthcoming and Ring Round the Bathtub was
quickly interred in the period’s expanding cemetery for one-performance shows.
Those released to look for other work included Louis
Turenne, Alek Primrose, Carmen Mathews, Carol Kane, Margaret Linn, Cathleen Maguire, and Kate
Wilkinson, among others.
