DON’T CALL BACK
 |
| Dorian Harewood, Arlene Francis. |
"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like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to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.
 |
| Arlene Francis. |
DON’T CALL BACK [Drama/Crime/Family/Mystery/Race]
A: Russell O’Neil; D: Len Cariou; S: Oliver Smith; C: Whitney Blausen; L: John
Gleason; P: Charles Bowden, Slade Brown, and Jim Milford; T: Helen Hayes
Theatre; 3/18/75 (1)
The title of this one-performance
turkey might just as well have been Don’t
Come Back, what with the critical deep freeze it was handed by the critics.
One-time star, and ubiquitous TV
personality, Arlene Francis was back on Broadway as Miriam Croyden, a famous actress
who returns from an engagement in Miami Beach to find her Park Avenue duplex taken
over by a trio of killers. Clarence is black (Dorian Harewood), Trucker is Puerto
Rican (Robert Hegez), and Crowbar is a dimwitted blonde (Mark Kologi). In
cahoots with this knife-wielding gang is her son, Jason (Richard Niles).
 |
| Richard Niles, Robert Hegez, Arlene Francis, Dorian Harewood. |
They are holing up at the star’s
classy pad as the police search for them following their slaying of two men. As
the action proceeds, underlying racial and social tensions are explored,
especially through the character of the black gang leader. The gang hopes to
become media celebrities and watches TV and reads the papers looking for news
of their exploit, to no avail. (This, of course, was in the pre-Internet days.)
Soon, they threaten even direr deeds, such as kidnapping Miriam and holding her
for ransom, but they are eventually wiped out in a gun battle.
At the end, only mother and son
remain, and the play ends vaguely with the pair staring at one another after he
realizes she has overheard him arranging to have her killed.
 |
| Arlene Francis, Catherine Byers. |
One or two critics, among them Clive
Barnes, were kept moderately attentive by the suspense, but they were disappointed
by the inept “surprise” ending. More representative responses came from Douglas
Watt, who shuddered at how “unbearable” it all was with its “atrocious”
dialogue and the aura it evoked of being a near-travesty of the genre. Martin
Gottfried declared the play an anti-black, racist work that was “clumsily
written, obviously directed [by Broadway star Len Cariou, in his New York
directing debut], and superficially performed.” Francis received decent notices,
however, and Dorian Harewood was considered a bright new find.
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
Don’t
Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
