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| Patrick Fox, Harold Griffiths, Alexandra Borrie. |
"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unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and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.
BLOOD [Musical/Youth] CN: Doug Dyer; M/LY: The
Company; CH: Cora Cahan; S: Doug Dyer; C: Theoni V. Aldredge; L: Keith Nelson;
P: New York Shakespeare Festival; T: Public Theater/Martinson Hall (OB):
3/7/71-3/21/71 (14)
A musical in the energetic, youthful, free-form style initiated
by Hair, a few years earlier. Blood claimed a kinship with the Orestes
legend of ancient Greece. It recounted the experiences of a hip-talking,
Orestes-like Vietnam vet through the use of music and words created
collaboratively by the ensemble in a workshop run by Doug Dyer.
The show’s novelty derived from its mobile, environmental
staging, apparently influenced by a production of Orlando Furioso that recently had visited New York from Rome. The
scenic platforming kept being dismantled and moved into new spatial patterns, forcing
the audience to constantly be on the move, carrying their folding chairs around
with them. This device so disconcerted Walter Kerr, who found himself already
tuckered out by the long staircase climb to the theatre that the dwelt
extensively on his discomfort and said relatively little in his review about
the show. (In later years, an elevator would be available for access to the
space.)
The critics were not able to make much narrative sense of the
occasion. Clive Barnes, who thought it “confusion run riot,” failed to see much
connection between it and the Greek story, aside from its “concept of a man running
from fate, chased by the Furies.” Some thought it superficial, others
illogical. John Simon liked the music and Martin Gottfried commended the pieces
as “honest” and “freshly conceived” because of its skilled staging.
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
