THE COUNTRY GIRL
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| Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton, George Grizzard. |
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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| Maureen Stapleton, Jason Robards. |
THE COUNTRY GIRL
[Dramatic Revival] A: Clifford Odets; D: John Houseman; S/L: Douglas W.
Schmidt; C: Frank Thompson; P: Roger L. Stevens i/a/w Hugh O’Brian in the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Production; T: Billy Rose Theatre;
3/15/72-5/6/72 (61)
This revival,
brought to New York from Washington, D.C., offered slam-bang by its trio of
stars, who took every opportunity afforded by Clifford Odets’s 1950 backstage
story. The play itself came off as a somewhat dated, melodramatic piece of sentimental
dynamite in its tale about Frank Elgin (Jason Robards), a talented but
alcoholic actor, struggling to make a comeback. Aiding him are his valiant,
long-suffering spouse, Georgie (Maureen Stapleton), who is subjected to the
disapproval of her husband’s director, Bernie Dodd (George Grizzard).
 |
| George Grizzard, Maureen Stapleton. |
Stapleton, in
the role that landed Grace Kelly a 1955 Oscar, received the most favorable
notices. Representative was Harold Clurman’s, which said: “Maureen Stapleton is
so moving because we perceive in her Georgie an extreme vulnerability that is
transformed into great strength. What lends her strength is richness of feeling,
always a source of power. Maureen Stapleton has enormous resources of
sentience, the only treasure a person must possess to achieve truly human
worth.” But John Simon, who panned the show, took the opportunity to severely
denigrate the actress, calling her portrayal “the catastrophe of the evening,”
and emphasizing the disparity between Georgie’s presumed youth and
attractiveness and Stapleton’s lack of those attributes. Despite the adulation
of the other critics, she was conspicuously absent from the season’s award
winners.
Jason Robards,
however, was nominated for a Best Actor Tony, and also led the Variety poll for “Male Lead.”
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
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
Cooler Near the Lake
The Corner
