Robert Brustein
NOTES ON A SUBURBAN THEATER
New Audiences For Old
American drama, whose very survival is now contingent
on audience approval, has always been conditioned to a large degree
by the character and opinions of the American spectator. Eager to
adjust its conventions quickly to conform with prevailing tastes,
Broadway has unwittingly functioned as a mirror of those tastes, a
reflection of the spectator's changing life style. Some of the innova–
tions of post-war American drama can be analyzed and explained if
we recognize that in the last fifteen years the American theater audi–
ence has been undergoing a crucial mutation. Once drawn from
several classes and education levels, theatergoers now come primarily
from college-educated upper-income groups; once predominantly city
residents, they are now being recruited from wealthy areas both in
New York and its suburban surroundings.
The economic reasons for this are fairly well known: rising
costs and union feather-bedding have made the mounting of a play
an almost prohibitive affair. Yet, rather than trying to control costs
by cutting away excessive expenses and superfluous ornamentation,
many producers are inflating the budget even further. A dripping
sumptuousness characterizes most modern productions-the simple
box set is being overshadowed by the multiple setting with lavish
appointments; and, while a play could once succeed with one or
two reputable stars, now not only the .actors but the directors and
scene designers must be powerful names, commanding, in addition
to large salaries, a substantial cut of the gross. These expenses are
passed on to the spectator who pays, as a result, as much as ten
dollars for an orchestra seat to the box office, twenty and thirty dol–
lars to theater parties, and sometimes even a hundred dollars to the
