On Stage
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley Audience Enjoyment and Reviewer's Chill Flower Dram Song. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics by Oscar Hamm er stein 2d. Book by Mr. Hamimerstein and Joseph Fields....
...Then he ceases to live...
...Surely Carol Haney and Gene Kelly, talented though they are, are not the ideal choreographer and director for a Chinese atmosphere...
...The Night Circus- By Michael V. Gazzo...
...To an occasional theatergoer, however— especially one who has not mingled with Chinese in New York, California or Hong Kong—F l o w er Drum Song may seem a colorful delight...
...His wife—who has never ceased to look upon life as laughter—continues to be his doom...
...as the novelist ; his father as the publisher ; Whitfield Connor as the movie magnate...
...James Theater...
...So the critical thermometer drops still lower, while the audience itself suffers a chill...
...Costumes and sets are pretty, but the structure is oldfashioned, the music reminiscent...
...Perhaps he has seen too many, has grown not sated but too expectant...
...F. Scott Fitzgerald comes to mind, but the author is more universal...
...We have been there before...
...Presented by the three aforenamed...
...The Disenchanted is a play one wants to read, to ponder its characters, to follow its thoughts to their farther reaches...
...Like many in our age, he goes down not with a bang but a whimper...
...Too often too much is familiar, d?j...
...Directed by Gene Kelly...
...By Budd Schulberg and Harvey Breit...
...SOMETIMES I wonder whether a reviewer should be trusted to report on plays...
...A song speaks of Sunday as the one day when the man can be free to enjoy his girl's company...
...At the Golden Theater...
...A critic must learn to distinguish between his and the casual playgoer's reaction...
...Also, I find in it very little that catches the Chinese flavor...
...So the critical thermometer may be close to freezing, while audience enjoyment registers 90 degrees in the shade...
...The one person in the play who is happily adjusted, content with her lot, having a good time with life, is the whore...
...Presented by Jay Julien...
...as with a shipwrecked mariner, "the rock on which you foundered is the rock to which you cling...
...People today seem to relish unpleasant scenes, taking an almost morbid delight in the pains and problems of others...
...George Grizzard, effectively contrasted as the younger writer, collaborating on the film, who admires and despises at the same time, who hates the novelist and loves him...
...Then along comes a play that restores the reviewer's hope in the theater, and makes him one with the receptive audience...
...And the "routine" pattern has pleased many times...
...The play gives not the final exaltation of tragedy, but a great poignancy and sense of loss...
...At the Coronet Theater...
...The song "Chop Suey," an American mixture, describes the play...
...The passions and pains of these people come to us with constantly probing words...
...you may ask, but it dates the mood and mode of the musical...
...The thermometer shows a long spell of warmth at the Coronet...
...For example, Flower Drum Song impressed me as a rather poor, routine musical...
...The Disenchanted, following a once-great writer striving for a comeback, has a mature understanding of his struggle, crisp and frequently wise dialogue, and a fresh use of dramatic structure that keeps our interest taut and unflagging...
...Bv Jason Robards, Jr...
...Her father, tangled in the lies of his wife, comes, half to lecture, half to try to understand his daughter, then drops dead of heart-failure as soon as he gets offstage...
...Again with Night Circus there might be disagreement...
...And with superb acting...
...At the St...
...Here is a restless girl who, in her wedding dress, runs off to bed with a just-met sailor, although she is pregnant by the man she was to wed...
...Presented by William Darrid and Eleanore Saidenberg...
...The Holy Ghost, the novelist says, is not a felt presence in you, but when it's gone it's a terrifying absence...
...The sailor, hating the girl for having caught his emotions, hating her more for having an abortion, but still tied to her, ships away at the end...
...Choreography by Carol Haney...
...The Disenchanted...
...In a spell of maudlin defiance he breaks from the assignment...
...From Mr...
...Miyoshi TJmeki is most engaging as a girl fresh from the Orient, Pat Suzuki quite hoyden as a "hep" Westernized Chinese girl...
...One rhyme may be taken as a capsule symbol...
...His last written words are "the living and the loving...
...As a thermometer of audience reaction, a person who goes to the theater only once in a while may be a better guide...
...Rosemary Harris, brittle as glass but bright as fire, as the wife that inspires and destroys...
...His earlier days, in the heedless 1920s, are caught in wavery flashbacks of his wistful dreams, as he tries to fight through an assignment on a "mushy'' motion picture to win the funds and freedom for a new novel...
...How many years is it that the 40-hour, five-day week is the accepted pattern in America ? Why carp at a casual rhyme...
...Directed by Frank Corsaro...
...Schulberg's novel...
Vol. 41 • December 1958 • No. 47
