TOUCH [Musical/Youth]
B: Kenn Long, Amy Saltz; M: Kenn Long, Jim Crozier; LY: Kenn Long; D: Amy
Saltz; S: Robert U. Taylor; L: Charles Lewis; P: Edith O’Hara i/a/w Robert S. Weintstein
and the Two Arts Playhouse, Inc., in the Plowright Players Production; T:
Village Arena Theatre (OB); 11/8/70; Martinique Theatre (OB): 6/1/71-10/31/71
(422)
Touch.
Touch was a successful Off-Broadway folk-rock musical—one of
several spawned by Hair—about a group
of young people who decide to establish a commune. The youthful cast (none
older than 24) had worked together for four summers at a Pennsylvania summer
theatre. Though not overwhelmed with enthusiasm, the critics were sufficiently diverted
by this well-sung and acted, intimate show, which included audience
participation. Lacking a conventional book, it had a fragmentary structure that
allowed it to be presented both onstage and in the aisles.
Among the happier
critics was Harold Clurman, who called it “a gentle and modest musical . . .
sentimental but never cloying.” Edith Oliver said it was “an easy little
musical . . . in which gentleness and affection prevail.” And Martin Gottfried
thought it “appealing . . . , modest . . . and at times touching.”
Director Amy Saltz went
on to have a busy career, including as head of the MFA directing program at
Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts. The principals, whose
names ring no bells today, were Norman Jacob, Barbara Ellis, Kenn Long, Phyllis
Gibbs, Gerard S. Doff, Peter J. Mitchell, Susan Rosenblum, Avi Rosenblum, and
Dwight Jayne. Mel Gussow, commenting on their apparent amateurishness, which he
felt gave the show a certain authenticity, summed up the effect of the
performances thusly:
The cast is attractive but ill at ease—like real people, not actors. It
is not always clear whether the vulnerability belongs to the actresses or the
characters. At the preview I attended, [I] wondered if all of them would get
through the show without forgetting their lines or bursting into tears. They
made it through to the end, and one was pleased for them. There was a certain
charm in this threat of stage fright.
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