Looking Back: '67-'68
My first play of the fall was Harold Pinter's creepy The Birthday Party, with one of my favorite actresses of the period, Ruth White. I caught a preview of and rather liked the one-nighter Johnny No-Trump, in which Bernadette Peters made a notable second-act appearance. Sada Thompson, James Broderick, and Lennon's Don Scardino were the play's leads.
Marlene Dietrich's one-woman show at the Lunt-Fontanne was undeniably fascinating, if also calculated within an inch of its life. Dietrich wasn't a spontaneous performer, nor did she seem to need the audience the way Garland did. But seeing her live was an event.
Sandy Dennis' neurotic mannerisms had begun to overwhelm her in the two-hander Daphne in Cottage D William Daniels was the other half of the cast. Then came the play of the season, Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which remains one of the author's most enjoyably accessible works. John Wood and Brian Murray were superb in the London import. No doubt the play will turn up again on Broadway, perhaps at the Roundabout. Another London import, There's a Girl in My Soup, was extremely slender but moderately enjoyable, thanks to Gig Young and London import Barbara Ferris.
Then it was time for the season's first musical, the enjoyable flop Henry, Sweet Henry. True, the film it was based on, The World of Henry Orient, was better. But the musical was appealing and even touching, as long as it stuck to the juvenile principals. Michael Bennett's choreography was notably inventive, and petite Alice Playten led two showstoppers.
Even with Ingrid Bergman and Colleen Dewhurst, the Broadway premiere of Eugene O'Neill's More Stately Mansions was on the turgid side. Then came the season's biggest musical sensation, the reopening of Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey and her all-black supporting company. It was Bailey's only major stage-musical hit, and she was grand, even if she eventually began to miss performances. Emily Yancy was a dreamy Mrs. Molloy.
Ian McKellen, Ian McShane, and Eileen Atkins appeared in the short-lived The Promise the two men had done the show in London with Judi Dench. Carl Reiner's absurdist farce Something Different had its share of laughs, and boasted Linda Lavin, Bob Dishy, and Claudia McNeil. Everything in the Garden, about some housewives who moonlight as prostitutes, was Edward Albee's intriguing if unsuccessful adaptation of a British play by Giles Cooper. Uncharacteristically cast were that Mary, Mary team of Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson.
How Now, Dow Jones was even less good than Henry, Sweet Henry, although producer David Merrick was able to exploit the title for a somewhat longer run. Brenda Vaccaro stole the evening, and there were a few good songs. Eli Wallach and Milo O'Shea weren't entirely convincing as a homosexual couple in Charles Dyer's Staircase; I suspect Patrick Magee and Paul Scofield were better in the London version. Another two-hander, Before You Go, had a very amusing performance by Marian Seldes, opposite Gene Troobnick.
Then came a treasurable evening, Zoe Caldwell giving one of the outstanding performances of the decade in the juicy title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Jay Presson Allen's play seems like something the Roundabout might also consider reviving, if the right actress should come along.
The Happy Time got mixed reviews and wasn't a hit, but I loved the Kander and Ebb score, Gower Champion's staging, and the performances of Robert Goulet and David Wayne. It only lasted a month, but another musical, Darling of the Day, boasted the season's best musical-actress performance, given by the dazzling Patricia Routledge. Golden Rainbow was a truly cheesy evening, even if it was kind of amusing to see Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, together on Broadway and trying, without much success, to be believable as characters their singing was, of course, tops.
Hal Holbrook, Teresa Wright, Lillian Gish, and Alan Webb were prominent in another one of the season's distinguished American plays, Robert Anderson's I Never Sang for My Father. Equally strong was Arthur Miller's contribution to the season, The Price. Yet another British import, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, was my favorite play of the season, and, as two Broadway revivals have demonstrated, it holds up well.
Plaza Suite represented all hands --Neil Simon, Mike Nichols, George C. Scott, and Maureen Stapleton-- at their considerable best. I saw the play in New Haven, and there was no doubt whatsoever that it would be a big hit on Broadway. English actress Dorothy Tutin was luminous playing Victoria in Portrait of a Queen.
A musical version of East of Eden, Here's Where I Belong was not as terrible as its one-night run might indicate. But it was the sort of emotional material that might have worked better as opera. It made for a decidedly grim musical comedy.
From London, Joe Orton's Loot was decadent fun, with fine work from Carole Shelley and George Rose, and it deserved more than its three-week run. Tennessee Williams was far from the top of his form with the unsatisfying if sometimes intriguing Seven Descents of Myrtle.
April added four more musicals to the season. The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N was, like Henry, Sweet Henry, a sweet, fairly entertaining flop, underpowered but not terrible. Extremely high-powered was Joe Layton's staging of the Joel Grey vehicle George M! While it may not have been a distinguished musical, it was a lively show thanks to Layton. I'm Solomon had a few nice songs but was the sort of show that had flop written all over it. And then came Hair, which was bracingly different and electrified Broadway. So much a part of its era, Hair doesn't revive particularly well, although its tunes have stood the test of time.
New Faces of 1968 was lousy except for Robert Klein and Madeline Kahn. And Tammy Grimes was her usual sui-generis self in the final play of the Broadway season, The Only Game in Town Elizabeth Taylor got the role in the film version.
Broadway's only genuine repertory company, the Association of Producing Artists APA-Phoenix had an adventurous season with Pantagleize, Exit the King, Helen Hayes in The Show-Off, and Uta Hagen and Nancy Walker in The Cherry Orchard.
Uptown at the Vivian Beaumont, Lincoln Center began its Broadway season with Peter Ustinov's excellent The Unknown Soldier and His Wife. The big fall entry was a scintillating revival of The Little Foxes, with Mike Nichols directing his future Graduate star Anne Bancroft as Regina, supported by the likes of George C. Scott, E.G. Marshall, and Margaret Leighton's unforgettable Birdie. When the revival transferred to Broadway, Bancroft did not go with it, so Leighton switched to Regina, and the production was less effective. Also at the Beaumont, the wonderful Diana Sands made a feisty Saint Joan, but Cyrano de Bergerac had to make do with the competent Robert Symonds when star Richard Basehart pulled out.
I skipped City Center's latest Brigadoon, thereby missing Karen Morrow's Meg Brockie. But I did catch City Center's latest King and I with Constance Towers, plus Life with Father with Dorothy Stickney in her original role, joined by newcomer Sandy Duncan.
During the season, I paid return visits to Fiddler on the Roof with the satisfying Harry Goz; Man of La Mancha with a fine Aldonza from Bernice Massi; Cabaret, with both Jill Haworth and her superb understudy, Penny Fuller, plus the return of Lotte Lenya; and Mame, with Celeste Holm excellent and Janis Paige respectable but less than thrilling.