On Stage
SAUVAGE, LEO
On Stage REACHING FOR LAUGHTER BY LEO SAUVAGE The critics' virtually unanimous decision has been confirmed at the box office: Crimes of the Heart is the first comedy hit of the 1981-'82 season....
...Suicide is indeed on her mind: She takes a scarf from a drawer in the kitchen and goes upstairs to look for a convenient rafter...
...Later, when Dolson is made Father Farley's deacon, the priest claims the young man was imposed on him by the hierarchy...
...Father Farley cannot help but MILO O'SHEA recognize in the young man what he once was and has compromised, while Dolson begins to feel that in order to be able to fulfill his duties as a priest, he might be obliged to learn howtobemore flexible...
...We learn from the dialogue that Babe didn't like his face, so she shot him in the stomach...
...Mirth is evidently contagious, and many theatergoers could not help joining in when the sisters guffawed about their grandfather's coma...
...are truly comic...
...In her case, at least, a happy ending is a possibility...
...Charlie, if I didn't misunderstand what he tells her over the phone when she forces herself to call him, doesn't mind her being sterile...
...Nevertheless, the new deacon cannot muster the cleverness or duplicity required for his job, and he winds up displeasing both the hierarchy and the parishioners...
...The fireworks between them soon become intermingled with mutual admiration...
...And Ger-aldine Fitzgerald's staging is imbued with a sense of timing at once robust and refined...
...Neither the long lines in the lobby of the John Golden Theater nor the awards and prizes being showered upon the show, however, have changed my negative feelings about it...
...The youngest sister, Babe (Mia Dillon), is married to one Zachary Botrelle whom we don't see...
...More important is the wider human theme, not necessarily connected with religion-the juxtaposing of the spirit of conciliation and the spirit of confrontation...
...Father Farley's genial and flattering sermons strike him as superficial and religiously uninspired, and he tells him so...
...After preparing some lemonade because she was thirsty, and remembering to offer a glass to her bleeding husband on the floor, she finally got the idea-probably picked up from television-to call the police...
...Babe was soon freed on bail without even being held for mental examination, despite the danger that she might either take another shot at someone else whose face she doesn't like, or (for better reason) try to kill herself...
...It's hard to say exactly what happened...
...A loud crash follows, and we see her come down the stairs holding the torn scarf...
...The rare moments I enjoyed in this "rousing comedy hit" I owe to Peter MacNicol's performance of the one exceptionally funny part Henley has managed to write...
...His freewheeling language and strong Irish love for the bottle make for an easygoing lifestyle, as do the rather Mediterranean habits hinted at concerning his never-glimpsed secretary-housekeeper, Margie...
...For Dolson, Farley is a father whom he would like to be able to admire more...
...Hardly a recipe for fun, it would seem, nor even very promising for people with little interest in matters theological...
...Usually this stops as soon as the nerves and muscles involved are back under control...
...They plainly must be very liberal to tolerate Father Farley, yet what we learn about some of them through phone calls and letters shows a significant proportion of individuals who sound more literal than liberal and not at all openminded...
...Wisely, Fitzgerald allows none of this to spill over into what brings the priest and the young man together...
...Mark Dolson (Michael O'Keefe), a young man in the St...
...Still, he is a clever diplomat and politician...
...Until now, this variation on an old vaudeville joke has been happily absent from award-winning stage productions...
...He knows how to deal with the hierarchy as well as with his flock...
...The conflict might well be eternal in life, and in fact Davis proves unable to bring it to a solid conclusion on stage...
...Judging from his unctuous, not always truthful telephone conversations with one Monsignor or another, his relations with his superiors are strained...
...Her contribution is particularly apparent in the way she presents the friendship of the two men...
...I also remember my friend's having to hide the record from his parents-they rightly thought that at our age we should have less silly distractions...
...I've never heard of a similar physiological outbreak occurring when a family is told a sick relative in the hospital is nearing death...
...Surface appearances notwithstanding, Mass Appeal goes far beyond narrow ecclesiastical matters...
...He may learn one day...
...Furthermore, his light-hearted talk about certain consecrated forms of worship and tenets of the catechism borders on heretical...
...In several beautifully tender scenes-for example, when with a filial air Dolson helps the unsteady and despairing priest put on his ceremonial robes for his last appearance on the pulpit of St...
...But not with the company Beth Henley has provided...
...At the performance I attended most of the spectators-not all of them, I noticed with some relief??were laughing almost as hysterically as the Magrade sisters...
...Henley and Melvin Bernhardt, her director, nevertheless think it's a great gag...
...He is in the hospital, too, though not in a coma like Grandpa...
...I find nothing enthralling in spending an evening with three badly adjusted, if not mentally retarded sisters, who are given free rein to exhibit their individual eccentricities...
...Miniskirted Meg Magrade has pretty legs and a good voice...
...Henley merely invents incongruities that have no logical connection with any otherwise acceptable situation and are supposed to amuse all by themselves-the way jokes do, mostly ugly and tasteless jokes...
...the play is very confusing...
...The actresses' competence does not overcome the unpleasantness of the roles they have to play...
...The kitchen built by John Lee Beatty is nicely furnished, and Dennis Parichy's lighting lets in a bright and welcoming sun...
...The author sends us conflicting signals about the nature of that flock...
...Perhaps by cutting of f the story sooner and leaving the situation open, Davis could have given us an even stronger work...
...With the cleverness of a stern-faced clown, he plays the smalltown lawyer who tries to handle Babe's case as if it could be dealt with outside an insane asylum...
...Francis, and a very popular priest he is, albeit a rather unorthodox one...
...Or a more frustrating one...
...I remember being in stitches as a 10- or 12-year-old schoolboy over a friend's recording of cascading laughter...
...Perhaps we should thank Henley for not extracting added fun from the fact that stomach wounds are particularly painful...
...What a pleasant surprise, then, that the ringing bells and sermons and clerical garb all blend into a witty, intelligent comedy...
...The action of the play all takes place in a Catholic church and an adjacent parish office, and its two characters are a priest and a young seminarian...
...meanwhile, by the end of the play the old priest has learned from his deacon and he actually delivers a sermon criticizing his congregation-something he has never done before...
...Michael O'Keefe is superb in his part, and once again Milo O'Shea demonstrates that he is simply great...
...Of course, when we see someone slip on a banana peel or come clattering down a staircase, our first reaction is a burst of nervous laughter...
...Francis seminary with a difficult, not too well explained past, now has a deep, intransigent religious vocation and wants to become a priest...
...1 certainly wouldn't mind eating fried chicken in this friendly kitchen in Hazel-hurst, Mississippi...
...By reaching for the unconventional in the last 15 or 20 minutes, the author nearly stumbles into melodrama: Father Farley's breakdown, repentance and youthful revival are somewhat artificial and too easily foreseen as a way of bringing the matters to a close...
...She therefore keeps away from men, even a certain Charlie with whom she is in love...
...The most prominent element of David Gropman's stage setting is a pulpit jutting out into the house, thereby including the Booth as part of the church...
...He eventually confesses that he asked for Dolson, because the Catholic Church needs a few "lunatics" like him...
...I think her humor is sick, not black...
...The eldest sister, Lenny (Lizbeth Mackay), is in a shambles as well: She has just turned 30 and has gynecological problems (Henley draws a big laugh by calling it "a shrunken ovary...
...Well, good black comedy explores the incongruities often present in the most dramatic situations with imperturbable logic...
...The Catholic Church merely furnishes the background-the starting points and turning points...
...Crimes of the Heart is being celebrated as a masterpiece of black humor...
...At first glance , Bill C. Davis' Mass Appeal at the Booth Theater may not look very appealing, particularly if it is humor you are after of whatever variety...
...Francis-the direction and acting leave no place for any pat concession to "modernity...
...Father Tim Farley (Milo O'Shea) is in charge of the Church of St...
...There is some mention of homosexuality in Dolson's past, and the hierarchy holds against him his absence of indignation-and denunciation-when a case of possible homosexuality among his fellow seminarians crops up...
...Audiences apparently share their opinion...
...In its modest and unobtrusive fashion, Mass Appeal is for the most part an impressive theatrical achievement...
...Upon leaving Hazelhurst for Hollywood, she used her legs more than her voice, and spent some time in a psychiatric ward...
...Perhaps the priest's skill at soothing such people is part of the definition of "mass appeal," and thus an explanation for the strangely commercial and misleading title of the play...
...I am not yet persuaded, either, that situations where the heartiest laughs are provoked by lines like "Grandpa is in a coma...
...She captures every rich nuance of the author's genuine humor and humanity...
Vol. 64 • November 1981 • No. 22
