Saturday, August 29, 2020

313. THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975


Delphine Seyrig, Richard Benjamin.

THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Comedy/French/Romance/Two Characters] A: Jean-Claude Carrière; TR: Jerome Kilty; D: Milos Forman; S: Oliver Smith; C: Sara Brook; L: Martin Aronstein; P: Arthur Cantor; T: Helen Hayes Theatre; 4/25/72-4/29/72 (4)

This was a French comedy by a well-known writer of novels and screenplays (who would later enjoy a major artistic relationship with British director Peter Brook), staged by a famous Czech movie director (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and starring two much-respected actors. Nevertheless, The Little Black Book, at least in its English version, was so weakly written that it was incapable of mustering enough support to run more than a week.

It tells of two characters: an attractive young Manhattan bachelor lawyer (the original is set in Paris)—A Man (Richard Benjamin)—who pursues and conquers good-looking women and keeps an account of them in his little black book—and A Woman (Delphine Seyrig)—a beautiful but mysterious blonde who arrives at his apartment unannounced, as if by mistake. Soon, though, she settles in to live with him. Before long, she is playing seemingly cruel love jokes on him, leading him to quit his job so as to seclude himself from the world with this woman he’s grown mad about. He then departs, promising to visit regularly.

The critics were bothered by the odd and sometimes baffling plot, the inconsistent characters, an inconclusive ending, and the lack of wit. “For a straight comedy, it does not have quite enough laughs; for a quasi-realistic play, it is a bit absurd; for real absurdism, it is too tame by half,” griped John Simon.

Simon and most others, though, were impressed by the polished performances of both stars, especially Seyrig, a French actress who had played the same role in Paris.