 |
| Ellen Burstyn, Charles Grodin. |
 |
| Ellen Burstyn. |
An unassuming, well-crafted romantic comedy that had all the
right ingredients for Broadway audiences of the mid-70s. It caught on at once
and hung around long enough to make it the most successful straight play of the
decade, running three and a half years. Its afterlife in regional and amateur
productions raked in lots of additional profits. And, of course, there was the
1978 movie version, with Ellen Burstyn (of the original Broadway cast) and
Allan Alda.
Its simple, but appealing, concept, arranged to have two
already happily married characters, George (Charles Grodin) and Doris (Burstyn)
meet one weekend in 1951 at a California resort, fall in love, spend the night
in sin, and agree to get together at the hotel on the same weekend every year
thereafter. George is a New Jersey
accountant, out West on a business trip. Doris, a Catholic, is at the hotel
before making a planned retreat at a nearby convent.
 |
| Charles Grodin, Ellen Burstyn. |
The couple’s affair takes them through 24 years of weekend
encounters, in the same hotel room. The audience gets to see all the current
trends in lifestyles represented by their changing clothes, language, and
behavior. Six scenes show them at five-year intervals, so George and Doris’s
physical changes become readily apparent in each new scene.
Same Time, Next Year was
viewed as a perfectly adroit boulevard comedy, despite its basically
implausible premise, and appealed to all the wishful thinkers for whom it was
obviously intended. A clever combination of social satire, nostalgic
reminiscence, mildly racy words and jokes, and full-blown sentimentality, it
offered meaty roles for its attractive and charismatic players.
 |
| Charles Grodin, Ellen Burstyn. |
Bernard Slade’s comedy was warmly recommended by John Simon,
who said “it is genuinely funny, often moving, and slyly perspicacious
throughout. If it does not rise into the domain of art, it at least never
stoops to facile sagaciousness, obvious vulgarity, or straining for laughs.”
Brendan Gill deliberately exaggerated in betting that the play would “run for
twenty years.” He laughed “helplessly, all evening long.” Douglas Watt may have
quibbled over the play’s slenderness, but Clive Barnes knew he had seen “the
funniest comedy about love and adultery to come Broadway’s way in years. . . .
Here is an old-fashioned, well-made play that is well made in a new way for new
times.”
Charles Grodin and Ellen Burstyn helped turn the play into a
smash hit by the excellence of their chemical connection. Edwin Wilson’s
comment that “they are providing two of the most solid pieces of acting New
York has seen in a comedy in some times” was representative. “Ellen Burstyn,”
wrote T.E. Kalem, “glows with womanhood and the understanding of life that
comes from having weathered life’s storms. Her performance has an unstrained
authority and is resonant with insight.” Of her costar, Barnes declared, “His
is a lopsided comic presence on stage, and he is even more consistently funny
here than he was in the film The
Heartbreak Kid. His comic sensitivity is so acute that he can give life to
a line by a calculated waver of his voice.”
Same Time, Next Year landed
a Tony nomination for Best Play and a Drama Desk Award for Best American Play.
Burstyn won the Tony for her acting, and also snared a Drama Desk Award. She
and Grodin shared an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Ensemble
Playing, while Gene Saks received a Tony nomination as Best Director.
