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| Richard Mulligan, Marlo Thomas. (Photos: Friedman-Abeles.) |
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| Irwin Corey. |
Herb Gardner’s
marital comedy about New York life starred Marlo Thomas and Richard Mulligan as
Sally and Martin Cramer, a pair of schoolteachers living in a lovely upper East
Side apartment, but on the verge of separation after twelve years of faithfully
observing their marriage vows. They have moved to their new domicile after
years of struggling, beginning in happier days on the Lower East Side. As the
years passed, their relationship, for reasons never fully developed, grew ever
more frayed.
As the playwright
depicts their personal problems, including flirtations with possible adulterous
results, the New York environment is brought to life in the persons of Sally’s
deaf, cabby father (Irwin Corey); a pilfering African-American
student (Haywood Nelson); and various apartment house residents and street
people, among them a hooker (Ann Wedgeworth) and gay man (Dick Van Patten).
Sally and Martin endure their crises and survive unscathed to reunite in
blissful matrimony.
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| Marlo Thomas, Haywood Nelson. |
Contrived to milk
every moment for laughs, the play was only moderately amusing, and barely any
critics gave it more than polite approval, although it stuck around for the
better part of a year. “How does a man of Mr. Gardner’s . . . intelligence
bring himself to set down such tosh?” queried Brendan Gill. John Simon called Thieves a “sticky blend of the fey and
sentimental” in which the author keeps “yea-saying to New York, to love, to
human nature, to life, to promiscuity, to chastity, to whatever else he can
vent his facile assent on.” And Clive Barnes declared that “nothing of
particular originality emerges [from the play despite] moments of insight, even
touches of urban poetry.”
The company was
well-liked, but not overly so, with Thomas, Mulligan, Corey, Wedgeworth most
frequently cited for the quality of their work. The sizable company also
included such notable actors as David Spielberg, Sudi Bond, Pierre Epstein,
William Hickey, and Alice Drummond.
Next up: Things That Almost Happen.
