The following precedes each entry,
"In Lieu of Reviews"
Around 40 years ago, I began a major project
that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage,
each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I
chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and
producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I
decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material
was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950.
With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not
sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my
1970s entries in limbo.
To compensate, I used the research I’d done
on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all
aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I
began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating
this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted
nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other
websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.
Now, however, with the New York theatre in
suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to
post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published
1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry
has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author
(A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume
designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the
dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original
entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.
I will try to post at least one entry daily.
When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile
paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the
tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into
posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find
reading these materials informative.
 |
| Danny and Trina DuVal, Barnard Hughes, John Randolph, John Cazale, Ann Wedgeworth, Richard Dreyfuss. |
"ACROBATS" and "LINE" [Comedies/One Acts] A: Israel
Horovitz; D: James Hammerstein; ADD. ST: Grover Dale; DS: Neil Peter Jampolis;
P: New Comedy Theatre; T: Theatre de Lys (OB); 2/15/71-3/14/71 (32); “Acrobats” [Marriage/Show Business]; “Line”
It would have been impossible several years later to
have engaged for a commercial production so sterling a cast as “Line” boasted:
John Randolph, Richard Dreyfuss, Ann Wedgeworth, John Cazale, and Barnard
Hughes. All its players were to have fortunate careers in the 70s, although
most were relatively unknown at the time. “Line” was the closing play on a bill
of two one-acters, the first half of which was a 10-minute curtain raiser about
a pair of acrobats who engage in a marital squabble while performing.
Professional acrobats Danny and Trina duVal were cast in the roles but their lack of actor training
was apparent.
“Line” is a satire about a group of five eccentric
people waiting on line for some unspecified event, and the stratagems each uses
to get to the head of the line. Its soon-to-be-distinguished company received
only modest reviews for its work—they were recognized as able but not unusual.
An earlier version of the program had been done
Off-Off Broadway at La Mama, and other versions had been tried elsewhere before
a Los Angeles staging clicked. It was this version, restaged by James
Hammerstein, that New York saw.
The critics were amused by the plays, especially the
second, and most did not dismiss them outright. Clive Barnes was taken by
Horovitz’s theatricality and clever dialogue and by his full-bodied characters,
but concluded: “The insights are not worth the paraphernalia presenting them.”
Walter Kerr approved of “Line” as a “brilliantly imagined conceit executed with
wit and an almost inexhaustible inventiveness.”
Previous
entries:
Abelard and Heloise
AC/DC
