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| Nancy Dussault, David Cryer. |
WHISPERS ON THE WIND [Musical/Romance] B/LY: John B. Kuntz; M: Lor Crane; D: Burt Brinckerhoff; S/L: David F. Segal; C: Joseph Aulisi; P: Bruce W. Paltrow and Mitchell Fink, b/s/a/w Lucille Lortel Productions, Inc.; T: Theatre de Lys (OB); 6/3/70-6/14/70 (15)
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| R.G. Brown, Nancy Dussault, David Cryer, Patrick Fox, Mary Louise Wilson. |
A nostalgia-laden musical
with a book so scanty it borders on being a revue, Whispers on the Wind, with whispers of Under Milk Wood and Our Town, tells a familiar story, summed up here
by Clive Barnes: “a young man [David Cryer] . . . is born, grows up in a Middle
Western town, goes to school, drops out of college, comes to New York, succeeds
in publishing and gets married.” Aside from an excess of sentimentality
and obviousness, the show was generally engaging. Still, it did not
survive more than two weeks.
Edith Oliver lauded
it as “a charmer—fresh, modest, and with a rare light touch” that told its
story with “humor and tenderness.” Barnes was also on its side, enjoying its
appropriate and supportive music (with hints of Simon and Garfunkle), its
design, direction, and versatile performances, with each actor playing several
roles. He said it was “thoroughly likable.” Arthur Sainer, however, was opposed because of its clichéd writing and “foot-dragging, unengaging score.”
The 15 songs had titles like "Whispers on the Wind," "Welcome, Little One," "Midwestern Summer," "Children's Games," "Miss Cadwallader," "Neighbors," "Apples and Raisins," and "Prove I'm Really Here."
Barnes noted: “David
Cryer, with his powerful voice and presence, is superb as the detached and, yet,
compassionate Narrator, and a gleaming Nancy Dussault, his co‐star, is equally
good in a myriad of roles ranging from the very young to the very old.”
The talented company also
included Patrick Fox, R.G. Brown, and Mary Louise Wilson.
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unpublished manuscript that would have been part of my multivolume Encyclopedia of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: Whitsuntide.
