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| Manu Tupou. |
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| Madge Sinclair, center. |
One of several
attempts during the period to rock-musicalize the classics, in this case a
less-than-widely-known Greek tragedy by Euripides. The evening was divided into
two parts, each with its own title. In both parts the role of Iphigenia was sung
and acted by a chorus of 12 talented young actress-singers of whom Harold
Clurman said, “They compose the best-looking group of girls on the New York
stage today.” They were Nell Carter, Margaret Dorn, Leata Galloway, Bonnie Guidry, Patricia Hawkins, Marta Heflin, Lynda Lee Lawley, Andrea Marcovicci, Julienne Marshall, Pamela Pentony, Marion Ramsey, and Sharon Redd.
This group, said Julius Novick, represented “an extraordinary feat of casting, collectively sing up a storm,
and they all register as individuals.” Clive Barnes added that the women made “you . . . well contented with the sex.” Unfortunately, he also observed, “without a readily identifiable heroine, the tragic pathos of the piece
naturally becomes dissipated.”
A further problem was
the show’s apparent pointlessness. It added “nothing” to the original, thought
Barnes, and had no clear purpose for an audience of 1972, believed Clurman and
Novick. Another drawback included a lack of suspense deriving from a “double
time scheme,” in which, as Walter Kerr pointed out, Iphigenia both knows and
does not know what her fate will be. In Novick’s view, the unfocused treatment failed to
fully dramatize the situations.
In Part I, the plot
of Iphigenia in Aulis is faithfully
followed. It tells the story of Agamemnon’s (Manu Tupou) sacrifice of his daughter,
Iphigenia, a plot foiled by the goddess Artemis, so his fleet can sail safely
to Troy. Part II is in the form of a concert, with the lyrics recounting
Iphigenia’s travails in Tauris, to which legend holds she was whisked when her
father’s blade would otherwise have slain her. (The only other named character is Clytemnestra, played by Madge Sinclair.)
Aside from the actors' fine
singing and movement, Peter Link’s rock score—played by a group
called Goatleg—made the strongest impression. “This is one of the best musical
scores of the season—warm, vibrant and very appealing,” enthused Barnes.
Do you enjoy Theatre’s Leiter Side? As you may know,
since New York’s theatres were forced into hibernation by Covid-19, this blog
has provided daily posts on the hundreds of shows that opened in the city, Off
and on Broadway, between 1970 and 1975. These have been drawn from an
unpublished manuscript that would have been part of my multivolume Encyclopedia of
the New York Stage series,
which covers every show, of every type, from 1920 through 1950. Unfortunately,
the publisher, Greenwood Press, decided it was too expensive to continue the
project beyond 1950.
Before I began offering these 1970-1975 entries, however, Theatre’s
Leiter Side posted over 1,600 of my actual reviews for shows from 2012
through 2020. The first two years of that experience were published in separate
volumes for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 (the latter split into two volumes). The
2012-2013 edition also includes a memoir in which I describe how, when I was
72, I used the opportunity of suddenly being granted free access to every New
York show to begin writing reviews of everything I saw. Interested readers can
find these collections on Amazon.com by
clicking here.
Next up: We Interrupt This Program.
