JOHN LEE BEATTY: PORTRAIT OF THE DESIGNER AS A YOUNG MAN, Part 6

This is Part 6 of 15-part series based on a recently rediscovered, previously unpublished, 1980 interview with the great set designer John Lee Beatty, when he was 32 but already a leader in his field. It can be found by clicking on THEATER PIZZAZZ.

22. ANNA K. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Eugenie Leontovich.

 The following precedes each entry

"In Lieu of Reviews"

 

Around 40 years ago, I began a major project that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950. With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my 1970s entries in limbo.

To compensate, I used the research I’d done on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.

 

Now, however, with the New York theatre in suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published 1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author (A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.

I will try to post at least one entry daily. When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find reading these materials informative.

Anna Mitchell, Rudolph Willrich, Lanna Saunders.

ANNA K. [Drama/Period/Romance/Russia] AD: Eugenie Leontovich; SC: Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina; D: Eugenie Leontovich; L: Richard Nelson; MVT: Elizabeth Keen; M: George Bamford; P: Rick Hobard; T: Actors Playhouse (OB); 5/7/72-12/10/72 (199)

Eugenie Leontovich, a famed actress who had performed in various Russian companies in her youth, among them the Moscow Art Theatre, and who made her American debut in 1922, conceived, directed, and acted in this bare-stage production. It attempted to transpose to the stage Tolstoy’s great novel, Anna Karenina (1878), set in St. Petersburg and depicting the tragic affair of Anna Karenina (Catherine Ellis), unhappily married to Karenin (Arthur Roberts), with the dashing Count Vronsky (Mark MacCauley).

Mme. Leontovich’s concept was to have a company of actors appear to be rehearsing the drama and then to step out of their Tolstoy roles to comment on what they were portraying.

This play-within-a-play idea allowed the actors to dress in rehearsal clothes, to work without scenery, and to suggest old Russia only by imaginative period touches introduced when needed. Nearly everyone played multiple roles, including Mme. Leontovich.

Howard Thompson was impressed by how “astonishingly well” it all played. This, he asserted, was “rewarding, riveting theatre.” Others, however, were not so impressed. Walter Kerr found serious problems with the loosely established premise that did justice neither to the novel nor to the picture of an acting company doing its own stage version. He also criticized the amateurish level of the performers surrounding the star. The acting, threw in Edith Oliver, was indeed weak, but she valued the “delicate, comprehending, and quite ingenious” adaptation, as well as the unforgettable mature beauty and finesse displayed by the aged Leontovich, whose roles included Countess Lydia, Annushka, and Countess Vronsky. 

Previous entries:

  

Abelard and Heloise

Absurd Person Singular

AC/DC

“Acrobats” and “Line”

The Advertisement/

All My Sons

All Over

All Over Town

All the Girls Came Out to Play

Alpha Beta

L’Amante Anglais         

Ambassador

American Gothics

Amphitryon

And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       

And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers

And Whose Little Boy Are You?

21. AND WHOSE LITTLE BOY ARE YOU? From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Loretta Fury, Kathryn Grody, Martin Shakar, Richard Dreyfuss, Henry Calvert.

 The following precedes each entry

"In Lieu of Reviews"

 

Around 40 years ago, I began a major project that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950. With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my 1970s entries in limbo.

To compensate, I used the research I’d done on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.

 

Now, however, with the New York theatre in suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published 1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author (A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.

I will try to post at least one entry daily. When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find reading these materials informative.

AND WHOSE LITTLE BOY ARE YOU? [Comedy/Family/Marriage/Politics/Religion/Sex/War] A: Rob Parker; D: Sherwood Arthur; S/C: Charles Rosen; L: Robert Guerra; P: Haap Productions Company; T: McAlpin Rooftop Theatre (OB) 5/3/71 (1)

The up-and-coming Richard Dreyfuss was cast in this one-night flop as Skippy Hilliard, a Vietnam vet (the son of a congressman [Henry Calvert]), who returns home after being away for a year and a half to discover that his common-law wife, Helen (Kathryn Grody), has become pregnant during his absence and claims the father to be none other than God. The wife’s stupidly religious mother (Loretta Fury) is ready to turn the girls shabby apartment into a holy shrine, while the young man’s politically opportunistic father also wants to capitalize on the “miraculous” event.

Edith Oliver saw unfulfilled promise in the author. She considered his play confused and overwritten yet displaying a sure comic touch when on target. But Mel Gussow’s verdict carried the day when he declared the play “part comedy, part romance, part tragedy, and all awful.”

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise

Absurd Person Singular

AC/DC

“Acrobats” and “Line”

The Advertisement/

All My Sons

All Over

All Over Town

All the Girls Came Out to Play

Alpha Beta

L’Amante Anglais         

Ambassador

American Gothics

Amphitryon

And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little       

And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers

20. AND THEY PUT HANDCUFFS ON THE FLOWERS. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Peter Maloney, Ron Faber, George Shannon.

The following precedes each entry

"In Lieu of Reviews"

Around 40 years ago, I began a major project that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950. With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my 1970s entries in limbo.

To compensate, I used the research I’d done on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.

 

Now, however, with the New York theatre in suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published 1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author (A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.

I will try to post at least one entry daily. When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find reading these materials informative.

AND THEY PUT HANDCUFFS ON THE FLOWERS [Drama/French/Politics/Prison/Spain] A/D: Fernando Arrabal; TR: Charles Marowitz; rev. Lois Messerman; DS: Fernando Arrabal and Duane Mazey; P: Ted Menten; T: Mercer-O’Casey Theatre (OB); 4/21/72-9/24/72 (124)

Fernando Arrabal, a politically radical Spanish writer living in France and writing in French, visited his native land in 1966 and was thereupon thrust into prison on allegedly trumped-up charges. After close to a month, he was released but only because of the efforts of the international P.E.N. Club and such influential members as Samuel Beckett and Pablo Picasso.

Having witnessed firsthand the sufferings of the political prisoners he met, he wrote this controversial, horrific, violent, and burning indictment of prison conditions under Spain’s repressive, dictatorial regime. The American production was staged by Arrabal himself, first in an acclaimed Off-Off Broadway mounting at the Extension, and soon after in an Off Broadway version.

Arrabal used many theatricalist and absurdist techniques, as well as almost embarrassingly intimate naturalism, to tell his episodic, hour-and-a-half-long story of four half-mad prisoners—incarcerated for their participation two decades earlier in the Spanish Civil War—sharing a small cell and recounting and enacting their memories and fantasies. In these they sometimes played other roles as well as themselves.

To help capture the brutal reality of a prison environment, Off-Off audiences entering the theatre were manhandled by ushers (who immediately calmed them by whispering that they were not to be frightened). This was not necessary, complained Mel Gussow: “The play provides its own hammerlocks.” The device was dropped for Off Broadway.

During the course of the evening, the audience was assaulted by a succession of hellish pictures of man’s inhumanity to man. Arrabal presented tome extremely literal sexual, sadistic, and excretory images, including a much-discussed bit in which a nude prisoner actually urinated after being strangled. “How do you suppose he does in on cue?” asked Edith Oliver.

The effect of these nightmarish vision was “discomforting, almost unbearable,” for Gussow. The “extraordinary” play’s “power and pain” were deeply felt by Clive Barnes. A number of reviewers, however, were distressed by the work’s shock values, especially the urination scene, another in which a man ate his own testicles, and one in which a prisoner performed fellatio on the crucified Jesus (Catholic religious symbols were a persistent motif).

Even though Arthur Sainer was impressed by the totality, he thought the work “misguided” because the author had failed to transform his vision into a transcendent artistic one. And Walter Kerr was distracted from the horror of the effects by the many ritualistic, avant-garde methods that constantly intruded in the staging.

The eight-member cast included Peter Maloney, who later had a distinguished career, and Ron Faber, who received an OBIE for Distinguished Performance and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

  

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise

Absurd Person Singular

AC/DC

“Acrobats” and “Line”

The Advertisement/

All My Sons

All Over

All Over Town

All the Girls Came Out to Play

Alpha Beta

L’Amante Anglais         

Ambassador

American Gothics

Amphitryon

And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little

19. AND MISS REARDON DRINKS A LITTLE. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Estelle Parsons, Julie Harris, Nancy Marchand.

The following precedes each entry

"In Lieu of Reviews"  

Around 40 years ago, I began a major project that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950. With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my 1970s entries in limbo.

To compensate, I used the research I’d done on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.

 

Now, however, with the New York theatre in suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published 1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author (A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.

I will try to post at least one entry daily. When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find reading these materials informat

Julie Harris, Nancy Marchand, Bill Macy, Rae Allen.

AND MISS REARDON DRINKS A LITTLE [Comedy-Drama/Alcoholism/Family/Mental Illness/Women] A: Paul Zindel; D: Melvin Bernhardt; S: Fred Voelpel; C: Sara Brook; L: Martin Aronstein; P: James B. McKenzie, Spofford J. Beadle Seth L. Schapiro, Kenneth Waissman, and Maxine Fox; T: Morosco Theatre; 2/25/71-5/29/71 (108)

To most, this play was undramatic, verbose, had unnecessary and excessive profanity, inconsistent characters, and a vaguely defined purpose. Richard Watts thought it “a serious disappointment," and Brendan Gill asserted it put author Paul Zindel’s “professional life in jeopardy,” given the success of his previous (and first) play, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

Like most of Zindel’s subsequent plays, Miss Reardon offered juicy roles for charismatic female stars. Estelle Parsons, Julie Harris, and Nancy Marchand had a fine time chewing the scenery as the Irish-American sisters, Catherine Reardon (Parsons), Anna Reardon (Julie Harris), and Ceil Adams (Marchand), the only married one.

Sharing an apartment on Staten Island, shortly after their ailing mother died, are Anna and Catherine. Anna is a hypochondriac vegetarian who’s had a nervous breakdown, and teaches chemistry at a junior high. The cynical, foulmouthed, booze-guzzling Catherine is assistant principal at the same school. Ceil—who stole (and married) Catherine’s boyfriend—is the uptight, authoritarian, local school superintendent. The play depicts a family dinner that also introduces a pushy guidance counselor named Fleur Stein (Rae Allen), seeking a raise, and her husband, Bog (Bill Macy).

Julie Harris, Nancy Marchand.

Anna is on a forced break after having done something inappropriate with a student. The straitlaced Ceil, who wishes to have her sister suspended, is up against the selfish Catherine, who eventually agrees to commit Anna to a home for the mentally disturbed. In the process, each of the sisters comes to appear unbalanced to some degree.

There were kind words from Douglas Watt, Jack Kroll, and Martin Gottfried, but, as noted above, the general response was negative. The acting of the leads was the main attraction although Rae Allen, as a neighbor, received a Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Of the sisters, Parsons, who landed a Tony nomination for  Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a play (the winner was Maureen Stapleton in The Gingerbread Lady), was the most warmly applauded. Gottfried wrote: “Miss Parsons picks up the role and runs with it like a thoroughbred, dropping wisecracks here and candor there.” [Note: thanks to Jay Kindervater for pointing out an earlier posting's mistakes in who won and who was nominated for the Tonys.]

  

Previous entries:

Abelard and Heloise

Absurd Person Singular

AC/DC

“Acrobats” and “Line”

The Advertisement/

All My Sons

All Over

All Over Town

All the Girls Came Out to Play

Alpha Beta

L’Amante Anglais         

Ambassador

American Gothics

Amphitryon

18. AMPHITRYON. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

The following precedes each entry

"In Lieu of Reviews" 

Around 40 years ago, I began a major project that eventuated in the publication of my multivolume series, The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, each volume covering a decade. For some reason now lost to the sands of time, I chose to start with the 1970s. After writing all the entries through 1975 and producing a typed manuscript of 1,038 pages my publisher (Greenwood) and I decided it would be best to commence with the 1920s. So the 1970-1975 material was put aside as I produced volumes for 1920-1930, 1930-1940, and 1940-1950. With those concluded, Greenwood decided it was all too expensive and not sufficiently profitable, so the remaining volumes were cancelled, leaving my 1970s entries in limbo.

To compensate, I used the research I’d done on the 1970s to write a book for Greenwood called Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies, which described all aspects of that era’s theatre, onstage and off. Many years later, in 2012, I began a postretirement “career” as a theatre reviewer, which led to my creating this blog as an outlet for my reviews. Over the past eight years or so I’ve posted nearly 1,600 reviews, a substantial number having first appeared on other websites: Theater Pizzazz, The Broadway Blog, and Theater Life.

 

Now, however, with the New York theatre in suspension, and my reviewing completely halted, is probably the perfect time to post as many as possible of the entries I prepared for the never-published 1970-1975 book. The entries that follow are in alphabetical order. Each entry has a heading listing the subject categories of the work described: the author (A), the director (D), additional staging (ADD ST), when credited; the producer (P), the set designer (S), the costume designer (C), the lighting designer (L), the source (SC), the theatre (T), the dates of the run, and, in parentheses, the length of the run. The original entries also contained the names of all the actors but I’ve omitted those here.

I will try to post at least one entry daily. When time allows, I’ll provide more. The manuscript exists on fading, fragile paper and, because no digital files exist, must be retyped. Hopefully, the tragic health situation we’re all enduring will abate before I get too far into posting these entries but, for the time being, devoted theatre lovers may find reading these materials informat

AMPHITRYON [Comedy/Fantasy/Foreign Language/Sex] A: Heinrich von Kleist; D: Dieter Munck; S: Christian Bussmann; P: Goethe Institute of Munich and Gert von Gontard; T: Barbizon-Plaza Theatre (OB); 11/17/70-11/22/70 (8)

One of three productions done in repertory by the touring Munich troupe Die Brücke (The Bridge) in their third trip to New York. Amphitryon was a Kleist comedy of 1807 based on Molière’s play of that name. This version seems never to have been produced professionally in New York before.

John Simon attacked the “mess” of a production made of this “great comedy” about Jupiter’s seduction of a mortal woman by transforming himself into the likeness of her husband. Simon disliked the acting, direction, and design, all of which misrepresented Kleist’s comic style by playing it as slapstick farce. On the other hand, Howard Thompson declared this “a perfectly elegant, 

earthbound” presentation.

The other plays presented by this company were Tankred Dorst's Die Kurve (The Curve) and Bertolt Brecht's Die Kleinbürger-Hochzeit (The Wedding Feast).

Previous entries: 

Abelard and Heloise

Absurd Person Singular

AC/DC

“Acrobats” and “Line”

The Advertisement/

All My Sons

All Over

All Over Town

All the Girls Came Out to Play

Alpha Beta

L’Amante Anglais         

Ambassador

American Gothics

An American Millionaire

JOHN LEE BEATTY: PORTRAIT OF THE DESIGNER AS A YOUNG MAN. Part 5

This is Part 5 of a 15-part series based on a recently rediscovered, previously unpublished, 1980 interview I did with the great set designer, John Lee Beatty, when he was 32 but already a leaderin his field. It can be found by clicking on THEATER PIZZAZZ.