526. THERE'S ONE IN EVERY MARRIAGE. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Patricia Gage, Jack Creley, Tudi Wiggins, Peter Donat, Roberta Maxwell, and others. (Photos: Martha Swope.)

THERE’S ONE IN EVERY MARRIAGE [Comedy/French/Marriage] A: Georges Feydeau; TR: Suzanne Grossman and Paxton Whitehead; D: Jean Gascon; DS: Alan Barlow; L: Gil Wechsler; P: David Merrick i/a/w Byron Goldman in the Stratford National Theatre of Canada’s Production; T: Royale Theatre; 1/3/72-1/15/72 (16)

Jack Creley, Peter Donat.

Turn-of-the-20th-century Parisian farceur Georges Feydeau’s Le Dindon (The Turkey), written in 1898, had been produced in French in New York in 1961 for six performances by the Comédie Française. The present version was its local English-language debut, and came to town from Stratford, Ontario, where it had been successfully staged by Jean Gascon. (A flimsy Off-Broadway revival under by the Pearl Theatre under the title The Dingdong arrived in 2016.)

A conventional bedroom farce about eccentric bourgeois adulterers racing about in a comic maelstrom of beds, doors, and puns, the play failed to hit the right note for Broadway hitdom and closed quickly. There was good reason for its French title not to have been translated literally. One or two performances were noteworthy, especially that of Roberta Maxwell, but the company did not fully satisfy. Among the better known actors were Peter Donat, Tony Van Bridge, and Joseph Maher.

Patricia Gage, Jack Creley.

The special Feydeau style and flavor were thought missing from this concoction about the attempt of a lawyer’s best friend, a bachelor (Jack Creley), to seduce his upright wife (Maxwell), and the wife’s desire to teach her philandering hubby (Donat) a lesson when she learns of his peccadillos.

“This is dramatic confectionary rather than dramatic architecture,” jibed Clive Barnes. Michael Feingold believed that the “players are so busy Playing Farce that they have no time to become their characters.”