Wednesday, April 29, 2020

67. BUNRAKU. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


The Bunraku troupe in Tsuri Onna (Fishing for Wives).
"In Lieu of Reviews"

For background on how this previously unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and 1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

BUNRAKU [Drama/Japanese/Puppets] TR: Faubion Bowers; P: Kazuko Hillyer i/a/w City Center of Music and Drama, Inc., in the National Puppet Theatre Production; T: City Center 55th Street Theatre; 4/3/73-4/15/73 (17) Ehon Taikōki (The Exploits of the Tycoon); Shinpan Utazaemon (The Triangular Love); Heike Nyōgo no Shima (The Priest in Exile); Tsuri Onna (Fishing for Wives); Sonezaki Shinjū (The Double Suicide at Sonezaki)

One of the world’s theatrical gems, bunraku is a Japanese genre originating at the turn of the 17th century in which slightly smaller than life-sized puppets are manipulated in full view of the audience by three manipulators each, one for the head and right arm, one for the left arm, and one for the legs, all working in perfect coordination. Vocal passages are spoken and chanted by one or more narrators seated on their knees behind a reading stand on a platform at stage left, where they are accompanied by a similarly seated musician playing the three-stringed shamisen.

Performances are given in elaborate sets scaled to the size of the puppets but large enough for a considerable number of them and their operators to appear. The plays are principally of two kinds, historical and domestic, the latter depicting the lives of everyday commoners during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868).

This was the second visit of bunraku to America, following one in 1966, and included a repertory of five plays representing examples of the historical and domestic genres, with one dance piece (Tsuri Onna) adapted from the comical form called kyōgen. Japanese theatre expert Faubion Bowers translated the plays and provided simultaneous commentary on rented headphones, as he did for many similar visits of Japanese troupes. The titles of most of his translations are more descriptive of their themes than literal versions of their Japanese meanings.

The reviewers were suitably impressed by the skillful mastery of the performers, and were surprised at how the onstage puppeteers soon seemed to fade from notice as the highly articulated and realistically maneuvered dolls captured all their attention. “Bunraku’s figures offer us the idea of the represented person rather than specific human beings, even when the characters . . . are ostensibly a commonplace soy-shop clerk and a courtesan,” wrote Harold Clurman.

The effect of bunraku is best appreciated in the more intimate confines of the smallish theatres they employ in Japan. This feeling was somewhat dissipated by the cavernous City Center auditorium.

Previous entries:


Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats” and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais         
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       
And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man

Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L. Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brief Lives
Brother Gorski
Brothers
Bullshot Crummond
























































66. BULLSHOT CRUMMOND. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


Ron House, Diz White, John Neville-Andrews, Alan Shearman, Louisa Hart.
"In Lieu of Reviews"

For background on how this previously unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and 1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

BULLSHOT CRUMMOND [Comedy/British/Crime] A: Ron House, John Neville-Andrews, Alan Shearman, Diz White, and Derek Cunningham; SC: an idea by Ron House and Diz White; S/C: Mary Moore; P: Gil Adler and Jack Temchin in the Low Moan Spectacular Production; T: Theatre Four (OB); 10/29/74-11/3/74 (8)

This is a work concocted by five persons, four of them actors in it, and several of them responsible for the long-running Off-Broadway hit El Grande de Coca Cola. Their effort lasted only a week, however. It was a sappy, sophomoric takeoff on the old 1930s Bulldog Drummond English detective films in which Ronald Colman had often starred. There was little of substance and, despite occasional funny lines or business, its essential triviality defeated it.

The plot concerned the efforts of a monocle, Erich von Stroheim-like German officer, Otto von Bruno (Ron House), to snatch a secret formula from an unassuming English professor, Algy Longwort (John Neville-Andrews, who also played six other roles), only to be pulled up short by Bullshot Crummond (Alan Shearman).

Clive Barnes said it showed “a weary contempt towards its subject material,” and urged his readers to save their money by avoiding this “drab and strangled gurgle” of a farce. Douglas Watt called it “unadulterated junk,” but Dick Brukenfeld thought that it “accomplished precisely what they set out to do,” and he found himself laughing constantly. Martin Gottfried felt similarly, calling it “awfully delicious,” with wonderful” performances and hilarious comedy routines.

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats” and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais         
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       
And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man

Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L. Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brief Lives
Brother Gorski
Brothers























































65. BROTHERS. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


(rear) Brian Farrell, Diane Gardner, (front) Everett McGill, Elaine Sulka.
 "In Lieu of Reviews"


For background on how this previously unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and 1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

BROTHERS [Drama/Family/Military/Vietnam/War] A: Stephen White; D: David Williams; S/L: C. Murawski; c: Jeanne Button; P: Whitecaps Productions; T: Theatre Four (OB); 2/13/72 (1)

Brothers, a self-described “peace play” that had five previews but closed the night it opened, was damaged by its excessive predictability. Both the My Lai and Kent State tragedies figured in the background of this tale about Frank Lewis (Brendan Fay), a super-patriotic World War II veteran, one of whose two sons, Sandy (Everett McGill), is a soldier in Vietnam, the other, Ronnie (Brian Farrell), being a militant pacifist.

Sandy returns from combat physically intact but, as in David Rabe’s Sticks and Stones, is haunted by the apparition of a Vietnamese woman (Tisa Chang). In this case, the ghost is that of a nurse he raped and killed during a village massacre. He is forever racked by guilty nightmares of the incident. The play’s major touch of irony is in having the pacifist brother killed by the National Guard during a campus antiwar demonstration.

Good intentions did not salvage this “slogan-bearing little drama,” which was “wandering and lost,” poorly written, sloppily melodramatic, and “murky,” according to Clive Barnes. Douglas Watt judged it “inept.” “His dialogue is clumsy and he has no ability to build a scene,” Watt said of the playwright, to which Richard Watts noted, “It is downright terrible.”

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats” and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais         
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       
And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man

Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L. Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brother Gorski
























































64. BROTHER GORSKI. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975



"In Lieu of Reviews"

For background on how this previously unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and 1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

BROTHER GORSKI [Comedy-Drama/Labor/Marriage/Race/Sex] A: Emanuel Fried; D: Salem Ludwig; S: Don Jensen; C: Sonia Lowenstein; L: Bob Brand; P: Brother Gorski Company; T: Astor Place Theatre (OB); 3/15/73-3/73 (6)

A hard-to-swallow pill of a play about a genial Polish-American steel worker, Stanley Gorski (Ken Chapin), who hosts a stag party for his fellow union members with porno movies and a stripper. The shindig is interrupted by his wife (Jean Alexander), her policewoman sister (Iris Claire Braun), and a priest (Robert Riesel), who rail against the atheists and commies in the powerful union.

The priest persuades Stanley to run for union president and drive out the undesirables. Meanwhile, Stanley’s wife keeps after him about his constant philandering. He is elected to office and soon faces major labor problems when he learns of a management plan to phase out senior workers, many of them black. He plunges into action to seek a solution to the threat.

Poorly constructed, flatly written, unconvincing, and with weakly drawn characters, it failed to impress. Clive Barnes said “It was well0meaning but excessively heavy-going,” while Douglas Watt felt it wore “the hangdog look of failure.” “I thought it missed out completely,” added Richard Watts.

Among the better-known cast members were Paul Barry and Elaine Sulka.

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats” and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais         
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       
And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man

Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L. Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf