Sunday, May 31, 2020

132. DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


DON’T BOTHER ME, I CAN’T COPE

Bobby Hill, Micki Grant.
 "In Lieu of Reviews"

Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to be and what its relationship is to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and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 entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

Hope Clark, Bobby Hill, Micki Grant, Arnold Wilkerson, Alex Bradford.
DON’T BOTHER ME, I CAN’T COPE [Revue/Race] M/L: Micki Grant; D: Vinnette Carroll; CH: George Faison; S: Richard A. Miller; C: Edna Watson; L: B.J. Sammler; P: Edward Padula and Arch Lustberg in Vinnette Carroll’s Urban Arts Corps Production; T: Playhouse Theatre; 4/19/72-10/17/74 (1,065)

Micki Grant’s soul music revue, first seen in several Off-Off Broadway theatres, as well as around the country on tour by the Urban Arts Corps, arrived on Broadway in an expanded version that became a smash hit. Grant wrote the show and starred in it. The critics felt she should have been onstage even more than she was, so warm and appealing did they find her presence. The songs and dances were on a variety of black themes, the overall idea being a plea for racial tolerance.

“It is fresh, fun and black,” wrote Clive Barnes, who equated it with “a flamenco show” and described it as “a mixture of a block party and a revival meeting.” Grant’s music was “delightfully varied and melodic, and her lyrics, whether stirring or tender or funny, are always ingenious,” noted Edith Oliver. “It is proud without boast; it chides but does not rail. . . . It possesses strength without menace. . . . It is entirely healthy,” commented Harold Clurman. Its “witty and intelligent lyrics” and “melodiously winning” music sparked a show that was “a love offering to the Creator and creation,” applauded T.E. Kalem.

Reservations, however, emerged from the pen of John Simon, who quibbled: “Don’t Bother Me is a harmless, well-meaning, enthusiastic Negro musical . . . that runs the gamut from hokum to humdrum.” Despite its “dignified militancy” being appealingly “tempered with judiciousness,” the show couldn’t rise above “simplistic and repetitious” tunes, and Grant’s smugness as a performer. Walter Kerr was even more negative, complaining about the show’s non-book format, banal lyrics, and lack of variety.

The show’s buoyant energy impressed most viewers, though, and George Faison’s simple choreographic inventions, Vinnette Carroll’s fluid and inventive staging, and Alex Bradford’s powerful singing and gospel choir were greatly admired. The show hauled in many honors including Tony nominations for Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, and Best Director. Grant also won an OBIE for Distinguished Performance, and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Performance and Most Promising Lyricist. Alex Bradford also got an OBIE for Distinguished Performance.


Previous entries:

Abelard and Helo/ise
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
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster

The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano

Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with Me
A Day in the Life of Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The Desert Song
Diamond Studs
Different Times
The Dirtiest Show in Town
The Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s House (2)
Don Juan
Don Juan in Hell











131. DON JUAN IN HELL. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


DON JUAN IN HELL
 
Edward Mulhare, Ricardo Montalban, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Henreid.
"In Lieu of Reviews"

Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to be and what its relationship is 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 entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

DON JUAN IN HELL [Dramatic Revival] A: George Bernard Shaw; D: John Houseman; P: Lee Orgel and William J. Griffiths; T: Palace Theatre; 1/15/73-2/4/73 (24)

Act Three of Shaw’s Man and Superman, ever since its successful 1951 Broadway presentation as an independent play, has been a mildly popular concert drama for name actors to perform in formal dinner clothes on a bare stage against a neutral background, using lecterns and microphones. Present in this touring version was Agnes Moorehead, who resumed playing Dona Ana, former mistress of Don Juan (Ricardo Montalban), which she’d done in the 1951 original.

Dona Ana and Don Juan, along with Dona Ana’s father, the Commander (Paul Henreid), and the Devil (Edward Mulhare), are conjured up in a dream by John Tanner in the play surrounding Act Three. The quartet’s witty, philosophical debate on various subjects provides enough verbal meat for four top actors to chomp on zestfully, but the present company, for all their previous accomplishments, was not entirely suited to the task.

Several reviewers, including Clive Barnes and Martin Gottfried, attacked Shaw’s inflated writing, while others, like T.E. Kalem, considered the piece a “dazzlingly sustained discussion of ideas in dialogue.” Kalem singled out Montalban as being “superb, no libertine at all, but Shaw incarnate,” and John Simon and Richard Watts supported the view that Montalban’s was the finest performance. However, a good number of others believed him to be inadequate, Barnes, for one, calling his delivery “monotonous.”

Previous entries:

Abelard and Helo/ise
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
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster

The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano

Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with Me
A Day in the Life of Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The Desert Song
Diamond Studs
Different Times
The Dirtiest Show in Town
The Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s House (2)
Don Juan










Saturday, May 30, 2020

130. DON JUAN. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


DON JUAN
 
Paul Hecht, Katherine Helmond.
  "In Lieu of Reviews"

Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to be and what its relationship is 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 entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.

Paul Hecht, Bill Moor.
DON JUAN [Dramatic Revival] A:Molière; D/TR: Stephen Porter; S: John J. Moore; C: Nancy Potts; L: Tharon Musser; M: Conrad Susa; P: New Phoenix Repertory Company; T: Lyceum Theatre; 12/11/72-1/4/73 (22)
Marilyn Sokol, Paul Hecht, Charlotte Moore.
Produced in rotating repertory with Eugene O’Neill’s The Great God Brown, Don Juan proved the more acceptable of this rarely revived pair, both dramaturgically and theatrically, even in the face of a low production budget that allowed for little more than skimpy visuals. Stephen Porter’s staging of his own version of Molière’s dark comedy about the cynical master seducer (Paul Hecht) and his comic servant, Sganarelle (John McMartin), was clean, polished, fast-paced, and often very droll, although there were directorial lapses. Harold Clurman said of the play that it “retains an ineradicable tone of contemporaneity. It survives through its fundamental theatrical vigor and its sprightly wisdom.”

David Dukes, Paul Hecht, John McMartin.
Paul Hecht’s Don Juan was greatly liked by Clive Barnes and others, but it was John McMartin’s servant that drew the greatest praise. John Simon, for example, noted how the actor was “clearly more rag doll than flesh and bone, with more catches in his voice than there are in a fraudulent contract . . . and eyeballs that seem to revolve sideways, inward and especially heavenward incessantly and sometimes simultaneously.” Given such notices, it’s no wonder the actor received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor, Play.

Other well-known names in the company were Katherine Helmond as Dona Elvira, Charlotte Moore as Charlotte, John Glover as Pierrot, Marilyn Sokol as Mathurine, David Dukes as Don Carlos (Peter Friedman was his understudy), and Bill Moor as Don Luis.

Previous entries:

Abelard and Helo/ise
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
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster

The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano

Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with Me
A Day in the Life of Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The Desert Song
Diamond Studs
Different Times
The Dirtiest Show in Town
The Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s House (2)