The Cavalier daily :: Tuesday, May 11, 1971 :: University of Virginia Library

NEW YORK Christopher
Hampton is twenty-four years old,
British, and the current "boy
wonder" of the theatre world. He
started writing plays when he was
nine, was produced in London's
West End by the time he was
twenty, and at present is
represented as author or adaptor
by three plays here in New York.

His adaptations of "A Doll's
House" and "Hedda Gabler," which
comprise the excellent Ibsen
Repertory, demonstrate a fine ear
for the English language and are
lucid, smooth flowing scripts. But it
takes more talent to write a play
than it does to adapt one, and Mr.
Hampton's comedy, "The
Philanthropist," while re-affirming
the playwright's flair for writing
good, natural dialogue, suffers from
faulty dramatic construction.

The play is about a philologist at
an English university, a man who
likes everybody and everything. He
is a quiet, timid chap who leads a
rather dull existence, deriving most
of his fun in life by figuring out
anagrams. As portrayed by Alec
McCowen, who with this
performance firmly establishes
himself as one of the three or four
finest actors in the theatre today,
the character is an interesting
creation; funny and pathetic, inept
and likeable.

But "The Philanthropist" has
virtually no plot — at the end of the
first act you have no idea what Mr.
Hampton is trying to accomplish.
The characters talk, but their talk
leads nowhere until a romantic
crisis comes about in the second
act. This puts added weight on the
characters, and when Mr. Hampton
allows his protagonist to make a
crucial statement that is entirely
out of character at the beginning of
the second act, well, trouble sets in.

So, the play meanders here and
there, amusing its audience
occasionally and keeping its interest
continually without ever having
much of an impact, except in Mr.
McCowen's beautifully detailed
performance.

"How the Other Half Loves"

Another British comedy which
recently arrived on Broadway is
"How the Other Half Loves," in
which three couples of different
social strata become entangled in a
romantic mix-up. Author Alan
Ayckbourn has borrowed, in comic
theory, from Shakespeare, Moliere,
and God knows who else, and has
wrapped all the farcical elements
into a slick, contemporary package.

Where Mr. Ayckbourn is
innovative is in the lever duality of
time and place: one set serves as the
homes of two couples
simultaneously and, in the second
scene of the first act, the action
shifts between one evening and the
next with remarkable ease and to
humorous effect.

Phil Silvers and Sandy Dennis
head the cast, and both are in fine
form, he more so than she. They
are well supported by a talented
cast and all have been exceptionally
well directed by Gene Saks to milk
the madcap goings-on for all they're
worth. Like "The Philanthropist,"
it's but another example of British
trivia, yet for paper-thin, light
entertainment, you could do worse.

"70, Girls, 70"

"70, Girls, 70" is the first
musical which composer John
Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb —
probably the hottest young
songwriting team in the business
after "Cabaret." "The Happy
Time," and "Zorba" — have written
without a Harold Prince or a Gower
Champion at the helm, and the
difference shows. Kander's score
for "70, Girls, 70" is fairly solid,
and I hope it survives longer than
the musical itself, which is an
ambitious but ill-conceived project.

The musical is about old folks;
it's a celebration of old age in
which a couple of dozen
septuagenarians try to act young.
Now, I hate to be a killjoy, but I
don't see where old age is anything
to celebrate, and watching these
people trying to act like youngsters
is, to me, a sad sight. It is intended
to be oh so cute, and at times it is
— to the point of being sickening.

The show is also awkwardly
structured. The story of a group of
oldsters who start a fur-stealing
racket for lack of anything better
to do is framed and continually
interrupted by scenes in which the
actors appear as themselves, out of
context, singing and dancing about
this and that, but never about
anything that doesn't blatantly
seem to have been written into the
show for the sole purpose of
padding a skimpy story line.

There are some individual scenes
which are entertaining, some
winning performances by Mildred
Natwick, Lillian Hayman, Gil
Lamb and company, and several
tuneful songs. But no matter how
catchy the music may be, when a
number sung by a pair of
septuagenarian lovers asks the
question "Do We?," then the show
is being a little too naive and far
too cutesy for 1971 Broadway.

"Long Day's Journey Into Night"

One of the saving graces of this
theatre season now ending has been
the number of first-rate revivals it
has had to offer. Having seen and
endorsed "A Doll's House" back in
January, 1 finally caught up with its
partner in repertory. "Hedda
Gabler," and was even more
impressed with it. Claire Bloom,
who was good as Nora, is, I think,
better as the neurotic, childish,
impetuous Hedda, sending a chill
through your body with her cold
beauty. And the Phoenix Theatre's
production of Moliere's "The
School For Wives," which is due to
close the end of the month, is a
delightful evening of classic
comedy. But perhaps the most
significant revival this season is that
of Eugene O'Neill's
autobiographical masterpiece,
"Long Day's Journey Into Night,"
which has just opened and which
constitutes an evening of theatre
that no one interested in American
drama should bypass.

The play, which condenses into
one day all of the mounting tragedy
of O'Neill's early family life, has
been treated gently, respectfully,
and admirably by director Arvin
Brown, who ever so slowly builds
the friction of the characters'
interrelationships and the sad
inevitability of their personal fates
until the two collide head-on in the
final act and the drama reaches its
emotional crescendo.

Robert Ryan plays James
Tyrone, the father and once
promising actor, and with only a
few exceptions when he isn't able
to rise to the demands of this
frustrated character, does
splendidly. Geraldine Fitzgerald
makes the slow transition from coy,
loving mother to incurable
morphine addict with a great sense
of maternal charm and innocence,
as she falls into self-destruction. In
Stacy Keach's portrayal of O'Neill's
hedonistic, semi-alcoholic older
brother, we see a portrait of a
wasted life, magnificently painted
by another of the theatre's most
underrated acting talents. And in
James Naughton's exquisitely
understated playing of the young,
sickly O'Neill, we clearly see the
seeds of the man who was to later
blossom into America's greatest
dramatist.

It's a very long evening — almost
four hours in length — but we can
forgive O'Neill for his verbosity in
appreciation for the finely drawn
characterizations of whom he called
"the four haunted Tyrones." This,
my friends, is American theatre just
about at its best.