December 13: ON THIS DAY IN NEW YORK THEATER IN THE 1940S

Bartlett Robinson, Virginia Gilmore, John Dall in DearRuth.

For the latest installment in my series, On This Day in New York Theater, please click on THEATER LIFE.

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 From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Karen Magid, Frank Kopyc, Anna Gianiotis.

POP [Musical/Family/Politics] B/LY: Larry Schiff and Chuck Knull; M: Donna Cribari; SC: Shakespeare’s King Lear; D: Allen R. Belknap; CH: Ron Spencer; S/C: Pat Gorman; L: Hallam B. Derx; P: Brad Gromelski i/a/w William Murphy III; T: Players Theatre (OB); 4/3/74 (1)

What? You didn’t know someone had turned King Lear into a musical? Perhaps that’s because it didn’t stick around long enough to make its presence known. A single performance and the old man died for good. Pop was, after all, an awful show that Clive Barnes said he “writhed” through. “It was a living testimony to the dictum that there is no stopping a lack of talent if it is given an even break.”

Lear, first produced in the Midwest, was a DOA attempt at anti-Nixon satire (we can anticipate countless such shows inspired by you-know-who, and I don’t mean Lincoln). It included in its grab bag “a tasteless parody of the shooting of the students at Kent State University,” said Barnes. There was little to laugh at. An idea of the level of wit is suggested by the names of some characters: Learsenpower (Frank Kopyc), Gonerilla (Anna Gianiotis), Cindelia (Lois Greco), Ignoreagan (Karen Magid), and Cornwallass (T. Galen Girvin). 

Of the music, Barnes said it at least “teetered on the brink of the mediocre.” “Utterly nonsensical,” “infantile,” and “ridiculous” were among the grace notes emanating from Douglas Watt’s report.

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 From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Roy Brocksmith, Alexander Orfaly, Betsy Beard, George F. Maguire, John Long.

POLLY [Musical Revival] B: John Gay; AD/D: Robert Kalfin; M. AD: Mel Marvin; MS: Elizabeth Keen; S: Robert U. Taylor; C: Carrie F. Robbins; L: William Mintzer; P: Chelsea Theatre Center of Brooklyn; T: Chelsea Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB); 4/29/75-5/25/75 (32)

Not long after the Chelsea’s much-lauded revival of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, the company resuscitated that classic show’s even more rarely seen 1729 (but not permitted to be performed until 1777) sequel, Polly. Some of the talents involved in the earlier revival were once more on hand, including Stephen D. Newman as Macheath, and designers Robert U. Taylor and Carrie F. Robbins. Seen only once before in New York, Polly proved not up to the standards of its predecessor, but nonetheless worthy of reviving.

Following the ballad opera format of The Beggar’s Opera, with the music of Dr. Pepusch “newly realized” by Mel Marvin, this work is set in the West Indies, with Macheath shown as a pirate captain married to Jenny Diver (Patricia Elliott). He goes around in a blackface disguise as Morano so that other women will let him be. When Polly Peachum (Betsy Beard) arrives from London in search of Macheath, the play’s varied adventures begin, starting with her being robbed and then sold into whoredom. In this work, unlike its predecessor, Mac does not escape the hands of the executioner.

In Robert Kalfin’s adaptation, a Pirandellian debate develops at the end before the pirate chief is killed. John Gay (Newman) comes down the aisle and argues with the cast as to whether the execution should be, well, executed. The actors are opposed but Gay wants him dead. He eventually gives in, but news arrives that, while they were arguing the deed was done.

Clive Barnes considered Polly lacking in “the juices of the original.” Walter Kerr thought it “very, very lightweight stuff.” John Simon said it was “slight, charming, somewhat spasmodic in wit and intermittent in satirical impact.” All agreed that the Kalfin staging was highly adept and made the show shine with fun and color.

The ensemble was superb and costumes and sets—which created the effect of an 18^th-century toy theatre with painted wings and backdrops—charmingly appropriate. “[T]he show has a soothing, almost balneal quality, which one can more than recommend—prescribe,” concluded Simon.

Newman won an OBIE for distinguished performance, and Taylor got one for his Distinguished Set Design. Robbins took home a Joseph Maharam Foundation Award.

407. THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Roberta Maxwell, Christopher Walken.

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS [Dramatic Revival] A: Sean O’Casey; D: Dan Sullivan; S: Douglas W. Schmidt; C: Carrie F. Robbins; L: John Gleason; M: John Duffy; P: Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center; T: Vivian Beaumont Theatre; 1/4/73-2/10/73 (44)

Nancy Marchand, Leo Leyden, Jack MacGowran.

Ireland’s Easter Uprising of 1916 forms the background to this major O’Casey work in which the vivid characters who live out their pitiful lives in the shadow of the gunmen evoke “the sorrow and pity of humanity’s folly,” as Harold Clurman observed.

Jack MacGowran, Kevin Conway, Leo Leyden, Sydney Walker, Lee Lawson.

The Plough and the Stars remained a potent poetic piece of tragicomic playwriting in this so-so revival, but several critics were reluctant to place it on a playwriting pedestal. “[I]t is not the granite stuff of great playwriting,” declared Clive Barnes, who stated that despite the play’s considerable activity, “nothing really happens.”

Pauline Flanagan, Jack MacGowran, Christopher Walken.

Dan Sullivan’s mounting, combining the Lincoln Center company with several outsiders, pleased Brendan Gill with its “robust” energy, and Barnes thought it “stylishly produced and very decently done.” However, more critics believed the revival deficient in the dramatist’s poetic quality, and ineffectively acted. John Simon, who considered this O’Casey’s finest drama, saw only “flimsy stuff” onstage; he also reprimanded the actors for their phony brogues. 

Christopher Walken’s Jack Clitheroe and Roberta Maxwell’s Nora were especially hard hit by Simon’s remarks, although they fared a bit better in other eyes. But the consensus was implied in Walter Kerr’s comment on the cast: “They are so many puppies shaking lifeless rag dolls.”

Other important members of the cast included the renowned Irish actor Jack MacGowran as Fluther Good, Kevin Conway as Young Covey, Pauline Flanagan as Bessie Burgess, Philip Bosco as Cpl.Stoddart, Sydney Walker as Bartender, and Nancy Marchand as Mrs.Gogan.

Barnes, summing up, wrote: “I liked the convincing presence of Kevin Conway as Covey, and Pauline Flanagan and Nancy Marchand both excelled as the two older women. But best of all was Jack MacGowran (Ireland's own pride and joy) as Fluther. Mr. MacGowran prances with a graveyard reverence, and clowns with sadness. His acting is a constant joy. But the play itself proves a more fitful experience.”

406. PLEASURE AND REPENTANCE. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

PLEASURE AND REPENTANCE [Literary Anthology/British] AD: Terry Hands; D: Patrick Tucker; DS: Anna Steiner; P: Brooklyn Academy of Music i/a/w Brooklyn College, b/a/w the Royal Shakespeare Company; T: Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB); 4/21/74-4/28/74 (5)

Note: no photos are available for this production.

This collection of literary selections, described as “a light-hearted look at love,” was given by the visiting Royal Shakespeare Company as part of a two-program repertory; the other was a revival of the well-known Hollow Crown anthology. With a distinguished company led by Sir Michael Redgrave, the program offered an eclectic assortment of letters, poems, dramatic excerpts, fiction, and songs. Authors included Sir Walter Raleigh, Ogden Nash, Alfred Tennyson, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Mickey Spillane, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and many others.

The reviews were highly complimentary for both the material and the performances. “The choices were made by Terry Hands, and there isn’t a dud among them,” remarked Edith Oliver. Clive Barnes said of Redgrave that he “is still the master of the aside, and his voice has a touching beauty. . . . He can speak poetry so that the technique of the poem vanishes into air, and only the poem itself remains.” His company included Sara Kestelman, James Grout, Paul Hardwick, and Martin Best.

405. PLEASE DON’T CRY AND SAY NO. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

David Downing, Vanessa K. Gilder.

PLEASE DON’T CRY AND SAY NO [Drama/One-Acts/Race] D: Philip Taylor; S/L: Hal Tine; C: Jon Haggins; P: Sally Sears and Primavera Productions, Ltd.; T: Circle in the Square (OB); 12/6/72-12/17/72 (15)

“The Brown Overcoat” [Romance] A: Victor Sejour; TR: Townsend Brewster; “The Botany Lesson” [Sex] A: Joaquin Maria Machado de Assis; TR: Townsend Brewster; “Please Don’t Cry and Say No” [Marriage/Sex] A: Townsend Brewster

A bill of three one-acts, the first by a Black writer who wrote in French for the New Orleans theatre of the early-19th century. The second was by a Brazilian mulatto who wrote in Portuguese. And the third was by a contemporary African-American writer, who also translated the other two plays, both of them lightweight time-passers.

“The Brown Overcoat” is a comedy of manners about a noblewoman who discards her aristocratic boyfriend when she is attracted to an interesting pianist. It turns on a dispute over whether an overcoat is brown or maroon. “The Botany Lesson,” set in 1906, looks at a celibate botanist who is seduced into having sex by a good-looking female. The author was the founder of the Brazilian Academy of Literature.

The best was Brewster’s title play, which concerns a young, middle-class woman who deals with her unhappy marital state by having an affair with a boy she meets in Central Park. Meanwhile, her husband, a rising executive, stops short of having his own fling with a girl because he realizes she is jail bait. “The story ends happily, but by that time it has covered almost every dramatic cliché in sight,” scoffed Clive Barnes.

Edith Oliver responded negatively to the opening plays, but liked the third for its humor, charm, and originality. Clive Barnes agreed, but judged this a “very mild evening of black theater,” “a cruelly boring evening for all that.”

Cast members included David Downing, Vanessa K. Gilder, Janet League, Lee Kirk, Ethel Ayler, Joseph Mydell, and others.

404. THE PLAY'S THE THING. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Elizabeth Owens, Hugh Franklin.

THE PLAY’S THE THING [Dramatic Revival] A: Ferenc Molnar; TR: P.G. Wodehouse; D: Gene Feist; S: Holmes Easley; C: Mimi Maxmen; L: R.S. Winkler; P: Roundabout Theatre Company; T: Roundabout Theatre (OB) 1/9/73-3/4/73 (64); Bijou Theatre; 5/7/73-5/6/73 (23; total: 87)

Neil Flanagan, Humphrey Davis, Elizabeth Owens, David Duke, Hugh Franklin.

By most accounts, this revival of once enormously popular Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar’s romantic comedy, first done in New York in 1926, was the best work yet offered by the Roundabout, then situated in a tiny basement theatre in Chelsea. There was considerable surprise at how deft and stageworthy the old play remained, and at how cleverly the dramatist had exploited his bag of tricks. In 1978, only five years later, the play received a far splashier revival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed by Frank Dunlop with a cast headed by Rene Auberjonois and Kurt Kasznar.

The Play’s the Thing concerns the methods Sandor Tural (Hugh Franklin), a playwright, and his collaborator, Mansky (Humphrey Davis), devise to convince their young composer friend, Albert (Richard Larson; replaced by David Dukes when the show moved uptown), that the compromising love scene he overheard between his prima donna fiancée (Elizabeth Owens) and an actor (Neil Flanagan) was something other than what he took it to be. The premise gives Molnar many opportunities to cleverly toy with the conventions of playwriting and with the concepts of illusion and reality.

Clive Barnes and Walter Kerr were among the majority who truly delighted in Molnar’s well-made playmaking, his smoothly honed craft, his charm, and his humor. “This is an evening of style and laughter,” wrote Barnes, but John Simon thought no such thing. Reviewing the play after it moved to a small Broadway venue, he wrote: “The Roundabout has converted [the play] into a large shard of bottle  glass, set it in a tin ring, given it the finger.”