On Stage
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley The Problems of Off-Broadway 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. By John Ford. Directed by Eugene Van Grona. Sets by Arthur Aronson. Presented by Norman J. Seaman. At the...
...A play of the first order is Ira Bilowit's musical drama made from Of Mice and Men...
...From the book and play by John Steinbeck...
...By Barrie Stavis...
...Music by Alfred Brooks...
...the boss with his hired crew of judge, police and strike-breakers, complete with agent-provocateur spy...
...For such plays call for consummate performance...
...The problems of off-Broadway are indeed troubling...
...At the Orpheum Theater...
...The Man Who Never Died...
...An immediate illustration of this is the revival of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore...
...In an author, it must envelop all his characters...
...An off-Broadway company can sometimes lure a star from the commercial theater, or surprise with new talent in a major role...
...Interesting as a social phenomenon is the reaction to the title...
...Playwrights, naturally, try first for a sale in the commercial theater...
...It has a poignant story, the simple effects of which are sustained by the superb work of Art Lund as Lennie...
...The eager and usually talented folk who work off-Broadway have three choices: They can pick up the leavings...
...The pregnant Annabella accepts marriage with a young nobleman...
...Presented by Mr...
...Imagination can leap in stage design, can soar with direction...
...At the Jan Hus House...
...And somebody else exclaimed: "Gee...
...and when Lennie breaks the girl's neck, we can feel with George as he lifts the pistol to put Lennie out of further harm...
...Bilowit...
...her j ealous brother kills the bride and husband, then dies...
...Love is a queer commodity...
...A work of the second order is Barrie Stavis's play The Man Who Never Died...
...The neighborhood wished to save its children's eyes...
...Flat, flabby—and fatal...
...Lyrics by Mr...
...For most of the play, they are the tools of the story...
...Here, they know, and they love...
...When the play was revived in 1925, the New York Times accepted for its advertisements only the words 'Tis Pity, stating (Jan...
...The human is the wife of Curley, mean son of the boss on the California ranch...
...In most literary occurrences of incest, the two parties turn out not to be related, or did not know it when they fell in love...
...Book by Ira J. Bilowit and Wilson Lehr...
...find a play that is fresh but non-commercial...
...a good actor needs both personality and experience...
...But the pattern is too simple...
...Eugene Van Grona has directed well, save that the scenes are too short with too many intervening spells of darkness...
...But go down to Second Avenue and Eighth Street and look at the theater marquee: 'Tis Pity She's a—and a great blank space...
...Then the problems have just commenced...
...This is a grim story of incest, as Giovanni and his sister Annabella fall desperately in love...
...All of Great Neck is here...
...The justice-loving lawyer who comes in, too late, to espouse Joe's cause lacks the indignation that probably pulsed in the author...
...And the lyrics seem born of little musing and no muse...
...or put on a revival...
...THE PROBLEMS of off-Broadway theaters are troubling ones...
...Inside, on opening night, I heard a leering voice: "Hi, Joe...
...I hear this is a dirty play...
...What is wrong with this play is the "musical...
...Shedding these, it gives us blunt, naked blood-and-thunder melodrama...
...Bilowit At the Provincetown Playhouse...
...Sets by John R. Lloyd...
...24, 1926) that the full title was "too stout by far for our delicate ears...
...Usually, among the young, adventurous groups, acting is the weakest aspect...
...But the body of the company will consist of enthusiasts groping their way, while the play requires a perfected acting skill...
...In his endeavor to pare the script of inessentials, he moves along with a gripping story—but he leaves out the humanity, which is essential...
...The setting is effective, the music of the accompanying harp softly accordant...
...The characters come alive only at times and feebly...
...who while leading a strike of copper workers in Utah was framed and executed for murder...
...The story unfolds with a fervor that is contagious...
...Inexperienced delivery does not take hold, does not touch the audience with the dignity and depth of the lines...
...Otherwise, not only the hero-victim i9 condemned to death...
...Leo Penn is good, too, as George, who has taken Lennie under his wing...
...Tis pity...
...But the acting fails the drama...
...Some of the songs he wrote are more widely known than he—among them "You'll get pie in the sky when you die...
...The workers, honest, striving for a decent life...
...This innocent hulk, the gentle moron whose muscles are too strong for his mind, progresses from petting—thus killing—mice to dogs to humans...
...In the dialogue also, Stavis presses too hard...
...The music seems little more than a beat, a pattern of time for the singing...
...The man is Joe Hill, known to many as the "wobblie...
...Of Mice and Men...
...John Ford handles this unusual theme with integrity and power...
...Now, the full title is blazoned high in the same paper...
Vol. 42 • January 1959 • No. 1
