Variety (January 1956)

56 LEGITIMATE Kfc&IETY Wednesday, January 25, X955 Shows On Broadway Tamburlaine the Great Producer* Theatre-Stratford Festival Foundation of Cariada production of Tyrone Guthrie-Donald Wolfit adaptation of two plays by Christopher Marlowe. Directed by Guthrie; co-features Anthony Quayle and Coral Browne; scenery, costumes, Leslie Hurry; lighting, Paul Mor¬ rison; music, John Gardner; conductor. Louis Applebaum. Features. Anthony Quayle. Coral Browne. At Winter Garden. N. Y., Jan. 19, '56; $4.60 top weeknlghts; $5.75 Friday. Saturday ($6.90 opening). Prologue . David Gardner King of Persia . Eric House His Brother . Tony Van Bridge Meander . Robert Goodler Theridamas . Robert Christie Menaphon . -r . Ted Follows Ortygius . Edward K. Holmes Tamburlaine . Anthony Quayle Zenocrate . Barbara Chllcott Agydas . Donald Davis Techelles . William Hutt Usumcasane . William Shatner Scythian Soldier . Peter Wylde Persian Soy . Peter Perehinczuk Persian Messenger . Neil Vipond Scythian Messenger . Julian Flett Anippe . Deborah Cass A Basso . . Bruce Swerdfagcr Emperor of Turks . Douglas Rain King of Fez . John Hayes King of Morocco . Harry McGirt King of Argier . Edward K. Holmes Zabina . Coral Browne Her Maid . Margaret Braidwoort Soldan of Egypt . Lloyd Bochner Capolin . Eric House Egyptian Messengers Richard Howard, David Gardner King of Arabia . Roland Bull Governor of Memphis Eric House Citizens . James Manser, William Cole Virgins of Memphis . . Myrna Aaron, Jacqueline Cecil. Colleen DeWhurst. Margot Hartman. Barbara Kay. Fay Tracey Phllemus . . . Alan Wilkinson Celebiiius, Son of Tamburlaine Ted Follows Amyras, Another Son ..; Lauls Negln Calyphas, Another Son... . Neil Vipond Callapine . Lloyd Bochner Almeda . .... . Douglas Rain Physicians . Bruce Swerdfager, Eric House King of Natolia . . David Gardner King of Jerusalem . . Roland Bull King of Trebizond _ Edward K. Holmes King of Soria . Tony Van Bridge Messenger . . Peter Perehinczuk Perdlcas . . Bruce Swerdfager Governor of Babylon .... Robert Goodier Maximus ... • • ■ Douglas Rain citizens Peter Perehinczuk, John Hiyes Turkish Concubines Coleen Dewliurst, Jacqueline Cecil, Myra Aaron, Fay Tracey, Margot Hartman, Barbara Kay King of Amasla . . Donald Davis Egyptian Captain . . . William Cole Scythians, Persians, Egyptians: Thor Arngrin. Kenneth Ayers. Guy Belanger. George Blackwell, Roland Bull. John Carter, William Cole, Julian Flett, Ted Follows. David Gardner. Jav Gerber. John Hayes, Peter Henderson, Gordon Hilstad, Richard Howard, Barney Johnston. James Manser, Arne Marku'wen, Harry McGirt. Alex de Naszodv, William Nuss, Loins Negin, Peter Pevehinczuk. Adam Petroski. Orest Ulan. Gordon Shearer, Murray Vines, Neil Vipond, Alan W^Bdnson, Noiv man Wigutow. Beverley Wilson, Peter Wylde, Allan Zielonka. International goodwill be blowed. A dull evening in the theatre is a dull evening, no matter how social the occasion and no matter how wistful the critics and camp-fol¬ lowers of. a worthy neighbor coun¬ try. The Winter Garden is draped with the flags of both nations. The two anthems are played and every¬ one stands. But “Tamburlaine the Great” is still a theatrical mon¬ strosity for the Broadway of 1956 and for $4.60 top ($5.75 weekends) in American money. Nowadays much is heard about exchange of “culture,” but the word will get a bad name indeed if creaky old works out of college Lit. II become coin of exchange. Indulging a purely personal eccen¬ tricity of choice, Tyrone Guthrie has selected a play written in 1587 by a ranting and railing 23-year old boy and, with this clammy text from scholarly cloisters, asks in¬ dulgence of Broadway in the name of Canadian-American amity. But it is an imaginary obligation to pretend an ordeal is entertainment — in any country or language. If Guthrie gambled for a New York tour-de-force he succeeds in reverse, for this understandablyneglected play proves a tour-de¬ force of tedium. It is action, yet with hardly a moment of sus¬ pense. The stage is populated with speaking roles, yet there is a min¬ imum of characterization. Guthrie’s selection of the work has been ascribed to his “boyish love of ex¬ citement,” but it doesn’t work out as excitement, It is shrill, Johhnyone-note villainy which grows monotonous. Jack the Ripper is more inter¬ esting psychologically than Tam¬ burlaine and Mickey Spillane is more up-to-date sadistically than Christopher Marlowe. It may also be added that the play is about as grisly as, but considerably less sus¬ penseful than, “The Duchess of Malfi" by another of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, John Webster, which was a Broadway misadven¬ ture of some few years ago when resurrected by Elisabeth Bergner. Broadway has heard a lot about the brutality and sadism in this play. From the first mugged nobleman who later commits harikari to the final bullwhipping of clusters of dethroned monarehs the production is thronged with tor¬ ture scenes. Tongues are pulled out. Eyes are gcrffged out. Two kings are put in head-cages and harness and made to play horsie to the con¬ queror’s Chariot,. An emperor is confined to a narrow cage in which he finally beats his own brains to achieve suicide. Even Guthrie can’t get all the sadism onstage. If a provincial gov¬ ernor is hoisted by chains and used for bow-and-arrow target practice the cavalry' which rides down a welcoming committee of virgins must be offstage. So, too, the burn¬ ing of the library and the drown¬ ing of an entire population. (Set¬ ting is rather stiff, with side-poles which remain throughout, always drawing attention to themselves). All this violence, this incessant, frightful pychopathic bloodlust i» unexplained and nearly always un¬ necessary. The killing becomes un¬ bearably dull. It is sheer flattery to credit the distaste the play en¬ genders to squeamishness. Rather the Case against Guthrie is not that he inflicts horror but th^t he makes horror in the end so point¬ less. Partly, this is because in the Mar¬ lowe telling of history it is one long setup for Tamburlaine. Nobody ever lays a hand on the scourge. He doesn’t eVen lose a lieutenant through all the years. Only a lit¬ erary historian could cite another work with so many ineffectual, stupid, trusting and ill-served kings. Blinded, bleeding and other¬ wise tortured, these kings are with¬ out even verbal weapons. “Bloody!” they all cry, and Tamburlaine grins happily. Although vigorously played by a number of the actors, some of the roles are almost caricatured. Per, the original King of Persia. Per, the pillow-stuffed jailer who frees one of the captive Moslem monarehs. With nearly 50 listed roles, this is a director’s rather than an actor’s piece. Coral Browne makes her Broad¬ way debut as a captured Empress, wife of the brain beater-outer. It’s hardly the ideal Broadway intro¬ duction for the British actress. She seems a sound trouper and perhaps she will return some other day in circumstances less suffocated with pretentiousness and directorial razzle-dazzle. Although pity and compassion for anybody else are rigorously banished from the barbaric rites which constitute this “drama,” when it comes time for Tamburlaine’s beloved wife (Barbara Chilcott) to die, the scene is writ¬ ten and played for some tender¬ ness and therefore presents this Canadian actress with • valuable career moments.. Tamburlaine is “human” in this scene, as in the scene which opens the second act when he is taking his leisure in a family circle with the wife and their three growing sons. One of the sons is an ef¬ feminate coward who can’t stand blood — and this is the most ar¬ resting situation in the whole play to modern psychology. In due course the father slaughters this son unflinchingly. A firstrate feat of acting — and a waste — is that of Britain’s Anthpny Quayle, from Stratford-on-Avon. To the dimly-motivated tyrant . he brings a kind of nightmarish plausibility in performance. The stamina of his vocal cords by it¬ self is a matter for admiration. Too bad that he comes back to Broad¬ way in so murky a work which says so little which isn’t trite to modern ears. For what, if anything, has Mar¬ lowe tried to say? The play seems equally withopt morals or a moral. It is an almost pedestrian state¬ ment of man’s inhumanity to man. All the banners, the putting on and taking off of crowns, the menacing of swords, posed arrows and lances cannot make the story anything more than a mad dog's progress. The burning of the books toward the end of the play finds Tambur¬ laine taunting God to save the Holy Writings from the flames and pres¬ ently suffering a stroke, as if God is rebuking him, at long last and only for getting personal, Here, surely, is a dated concept of Diety, deaf to prayer but touchy to in¬ sult. Marlowe’s God is as unpleas¬ ant as his hero. It’s only a petite cerebral hem¬ orrhage which strikes the scourge, not enough to prevent one of the longest mouthings of rhetoric ever written to be given the smokehouse treatment by an expiring thespian. Pointing, again, to the essential monotony and emptiness of the script for all its show of “action,” the tyrant at the end is aged but otherwise unchanged. He gloats in retrospect over his conquest and booty. He has a map brought out even bigger than the one Orson Welles currently uses in “King Lear.” As he declaims himself to death, Tamburlaine has j learned nothing. His egomania is 1 intact. From fir§t to last, a mad What’* in a Name? When is a booker a bookie? According to Frisco gendarmes, It’s when he has his office in¬ stalled with a couple of unau¬ thorized (what’s “unauthor¬ ized” mean? — Ed.) telephone lines, each with two extensions. Mark Anthony Petercupo, 38, operator of the Mark An¬ thony theatrical agency, was pinched last Thursday (19) by local constabulary looking for a bookie. He was later freed in $500 bail. dog, and no more interesting dramatically, at least in this telling. No amount of doubletalk or tact-' ful writing around the facts can make a “busy” show a good show. The script is part of scholarship, not of living theatre. It brings the spectator to a state of satiety in which he looks down the open pit of hell and yawns at the devil. Land. Fallon Angels Charles Bowden & Richard Barr (in association with H. Ridgely Bullock Jr.) revival of comedy In three acts, by Noel Coward. Direction, Bowden, setting and lighting, Eldon Elder; costumes. Patton Campbell. Stars Nancy Walker, Margaret "hilliDs; features Alice ^earce, William Windom. William LeMassena, Efrem Zlmballst Jr.. At the Playhouse. N. Y., Jan. 17, *56; $4.60 too weeknlghts; $5.75 Friday, Saturday nights ($6.90 opening). Julia Starbuck . Nancy Walker Frederick Starbuck... • William 'Windom Jasmine Saunders . . . Alice Pearce William Danbury., ...William LeMassena Jane Danbury . Margaret Phillips Maurice Duclos . Efram Zimbalist Jr. The aged and infirm deserve some consideration. They shouldn’t be uprooted from whatever dignity they’ve acquired with time, just to be exhibited as freaks. When they are, the effect is apt to be not so much funny as uncomfortable. Probably “Fallen Angels” was never exactly hilarious anyway. The Noel Coward farce was a hit in London in 1925 with Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best costarred, but a failure on Broadway two vears later with Fay Bainter and Estelle Winwood. It’s been revived occasionally since then, twice in London with moderate success and various times in stock, in the U.S., notably at Dennis, Mass., in 1942, with Gertrude Lawrence. The yarn is one of Coward’s skimpier plays (skimpier than “Private Lives,” “Desien for Liv¬ ing” or “Blithe Spirit”? — Is that oossible?), relying on an elaborate¬ ly low-comedy drunk scene in the second act. For rabid fans of Nancy Walker’s unvarying brand of mugging, it’s presumably a satisfying show, just as a revival ot' “Private Lives” was a boxoffice click some years ago with Miss Bankhead indulging herself in a solo hokum binge. But for those who like at least a little substance, or perhaps a slight change of pace, it’s a long and progressively tire¬ some evening. The comedy, revised slightly for this presentation, involves two bored to the point -of-adventure New York (the original locale was London) wives whose exasperatingly complacent husbands have gone off to the country for a week¬ end of golf. Having learned of the impending arrival of a romantic Frenchman with whom they both had pre-marital affairs, the gals prepare a lavish dinner, but get spectacularly plastered .while they wait. Somehow, Miss Walker and Margaret Phillips, costarred as the other would-be wayward wife, seem incongruous in this situation. Miss Walker’s playing Is limited to a kind of shoulder-shrugging disgust and resignation, while Miss Phillips plays it more or less straight and rather intense. There are some real laughs in the drunk scene, but otherwise only an • occasional chuckle. (Incidentally, it’s the second souse routine of the season that fails to carry a whole play. The other is in “Desk Set,” with Shirlev Booth giving a more subtle and resourceful portrayal as she be¬ comes the life of the party at an office Christmas celebration. In each case, the scene is funny, but inconsequential in terms of story, and futile as a show-saver.) Alice Pearce uncorks several snickers as the maid who is faintly incredulous at the champagne-in¬ duced shambles, but the character would be funnier in a sharply deadpan performance. The three men in the cast are competent, but the parts ai^e negligible. William Windom and William LeMassena are the smug husbands (the former should avoid these practice golf swings — they’re a dead giveaway that he’s not even a duffer), and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is plausible as the Gallic charmer. Co-producer Charles Bowden has provided inventively stock direc¬ tion, with a suitably hideous 1920’s apartment setting and painfully garish lighting by Eldon Elder and appropriately period clothes by Patton Campbell. Hobe. Shows Out of Town Mill file of the Niglit Wilmingtcn, Jan. 19. Joshua Logan production drama in three acts, by Paddy Chayafsky. Direc¬ tion, Logan; settings and lighting, Jo Mlelziner; costumes. Motley, incidental .music. Lehman Engel. Stars Edward G. Robinson; features Gena Rowlands. At the Playhouse, Wilmington, Jan. 10, 5fi: $4.80 top. Girl . . . Gena -Rowlands Mother . June Walker Kid Sister . . Jean Chambers Manufacturer . Edward G. Robinson Sister . Nancy R. Pollock Woman . . Betty Walker Daughter . .J Anne Jackson Neighbor . /. . . Effie Afton Friend . '. ... Janet Ward Husband . Lee PhUllps Son-in-law . Martin Balsam Edward G. Robinson, star; Paddy Chayefsky, author, and Joshua Logan, producer-director, stack up as a triple threat combination which should maneuver this slen¬ der but dramatic story of a December-May romance to Broadway suc¬ cess. With some revisions, includ¬ ing toning down the chatter on sex, show impresses as likely material for Hollywood. It’s an absorbing play, dealing with a middle-aged industrialist in love with a 24-year-old girl who has found disillusionment in her marriage to a musician.'At the mo¬ ment the script tends to be lengthy and repetitious, but there’s nothing basically wrong that some tighten¬ ing and sharpening can’t fix. Chayefsky has enlarged his drama, originally done on tv, in¬ volving the age differential prob¬ lem for two hearts in turmoil;. Aside from the romantic conflict, there isn’t much to the plot, but Chayefsky comes through with a series of scenes of high dramatic content plus some leavening mo¬ ments of humor. The characters are thoroughly believable and the writing through¬ out is up to the high standard of the author’s previous works (nota¬ bly the tv-to-film hit, “Marty”). A' play of this type requires superlative acting — and gets it. Robinson, returning to Broadway after a 35-year absence (however, he starred in “Darkness at Noon” on tour several seasons agq), gives an eloquent portrayal as the lonely middleager. His breakdown in the third act, when he fears the girl will jilt him, calls for emoting of a high order. It’s a grand per¬ formance. ; Not far behind him is Gena Rowlands as the bewildered, dis¬ traught girl who finds life and a romance with a man twice her age a tough proposition. Lovely and talented, she is a' real find for the legit stage. June Walker is fine as the girl’s dowdy mother and Nancy R. Pollock turns in an ace per¬ formance as the industrialist's possessive sister. Anne Jackson, Janet Ward, Effie Afton, Joan Chambers, Lee Phillips and Mar¬ tin Balsam rate bows in supporting roles. Joshua Logan has directed with a keen appreciation of the script’s dramatic qualities and Jo Mielziner’s two apartment settings are outstanding. Motley’s costumes and incidental music by Lehman Engel also count as production assets. Klep. Streetcar Named Desire Miami, Jan. 17. George S. Engle revival of drama in two acts (11 scenes), by Tennessee Wil¬ liams. Direction. Herbert Machiz; setting, W. Broderick Hackett; production super¬ vision, Williams. Stars Tallulah Bankhead; features Gerald O'Laughlin, Fran¬ ces Heflin, Rudy Bond. At Coconut Grove Playhouse, Miami, Jan. 16, '56. Cast: Tallulah Bankhead. Gerald O Loughlin, Frances Heflin, Rudy Bond, Vinette Carroll, Jean Ellyn, Bruno Damon. Richard Marr, Lou Gilbert. Sandy Campbell, Edna Thomas. Dorrlt Kelton, Bert Bertram. of Tennessee Williams prize-wir ner has become a star “vehicle that’s going to provoke plenty ( discussion when it hits New York City Center in February. Presun ably with the author’s approva or at least with his implied cor currence, since he is billed a pre duction supervisor, the herelofor pathetic heroine turns out to b the volcanic Miss Bankhead. The changes wrought in th character of the precariously ba: anced Blanche by the forthrigh lusty Bankhead approach no" elicit laughs in earlier moment of the play and occasionally durin the latter scenes. The tragic ovei tones are retained, but expande to full force by the star as sh sweeps from scene to scene, coir manding attention even in passage where her driving personality an dynamics obscure the actual dia log. Overall, her playing make Blanche a more complex, stronge character than originally. Th tragedy of her final destructioi depends on the emotioiTal pyro technics of the climaxing scenes It is in these key scenes tha Miss Bankhead’s complete take Only Rudy Bond, as the fumbling suitor manages to hold attention opposite the star. Gerald O’Loughlin, as Kowalski is overshadowed by Miss Bankhead's histrionics and" flamboyant personality, and reveals none of the violence and brutishness called for by the script. Frances Heflin also tends to fade out in relation to the star, and her playing emerges as merely adequate. Herbert Machiz, billed' as direc¬ tor, seems subordinate to Miss Bankhead, as does the lighting which spots her every move and mood. Setting by W. Broderick Hackdtt makes full use of the stage limitations. In <«hort, this tends to be a onewoman “Streetcar.” Lary. Mother Courage San Francisco, Jan. 18. Actor's Workshop of San Francisco production of drama in 12 scenes, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Eric Bent¬ ley. Direction, Herbert Blau; musical director. Wendell Oteyj scenery and lighting. Ernest Baron: costumes. Jean Parshall. At Marines Memorial Theatre, Sari Francisco, Jan. 17. '36. . In the eighth of the 12 scenes of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Cour¬ age,” bells ring offstage and tho title character shouts, “Don’t tell me peace has broken out— -when I’ve just gone and bought all these supplies.” That is, perhaps, the touchstone to this sprawling Satiri¬ cal allegory, which received an ar¬ resting production from Frisco’s Actor’s Workshop in its American premiere at the Marines Memorial Theatre. Mother Courage, the play’s cen¬ tral character, is a camp-follower, a canteen woman (possibly symbol¬ izing the spirit of war), during the Thirty Years' War of the early 17th century. From this dusty corner of history ' Brecht has pulled the membory of Gustavus Adolphus’s Swedish empire and fashioned a fascinating play. From the time of the play’s first scene, in 1624, to the last, in 1636, . Mother Courage learns nothing. Despite the death of her two sons and daughter in the war, despite hunger, cold and disease, she fol¬ lows the army (no matter which one) and lives' off the privations of war. Indeed it is her whole life, and she enjoys it. The irony of the sutler’s enjoy¬ ment of war is, basically, what makes the play such a powerful anti-war preachment. The main characters, in addition to Mother Courage, are the “brave” and “weak” sons, a mute daughter, a renegade chaplain, a renegade army cook and a camp-following chippie. The brave son enlists in the Swedish Army, becomes a great hero by terrorizing civilians dur¬ ing wartime and, when peace breaks out briefly, is executed for doing the same thing. The weak son, a fairly stupid lad, eventually is drafted, becomes a paymaster, and dies for protecting his regi¬ ment’s pay box after he has been captured. Before the play opens, a soldier has brutalized the daughter into speechlessness. Eventually another soldier scars her face horribly and finally she dies for her courage in sounding the alarm which saves the city of Halle. The chaplain and cook, counter¬ pointing the title character’s con¬ stancy, are earthy rascals who live with and off her at times until they see better chances elsewhere. The chippie, of course, winds up a lady, married to a colonel and with a servant. At the end Mother Courage is left alone, hauling the canvastopped, two-wheel cart from which she peddles her wares. She is fol¬ lowing a regiment and reprising the same song with which she opened the play. Herbert. Blau has directed Bea¬ trice Manley to play Mother Cour¬ age with a distinct Brooklyn in¬ flection, and she succeeds admir¬ ably in conveying both the strength and the middle-European nature of the woman. The cook, played by Eugene Rothe, and the chaplain, by Robert Symonds, are highly satisfactory, an occasional tendency toward carica¬ ture. Winifred Mann, as the col¬ onel’s lady, is properly unchaste. The eternal camp follower’s sons are adequately handled by Stan Young and Malcolm Smith, while Jinx Hone, in the difficult role of the speechless daughter, works up to an unholy hysteria as her end approaches. The cast numbers 26. Ernest Baron’s two-wheeled cart and tent backdrops are effective (many scenes are played against a plain black backdrop) and the lighting is' generally good. Jean (Continued on page 58)