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on and off-Broadway-was poor acting. 'Outside of the British imports,
even the most professional-looking (as opposed to pleasing) productions
were no more than acceptably acted in their major roles. There is
an ugly, hard style on Broadway, the result, it may be, of too much
thought and crystallization. Colleen Dewhurst, playing Miss Amelia in
Ballad of the Sad Cafe,
seemed to have gone to the Pavlovian school of
acting-melting and grinning like Katherine Hepburn in
Summertime,
only seventy-five pounds heavier, the instant Cousin Lymon scooted
into view, grimacing and snarling the moment unwanted husband Marvin
Macy set a foot on the stage. I do not single out Miss Dewhurst
because she was so bad. On the contrary, she was, among the American
actors to be seen this season, one of the best. But the fact is that the
level of American acting is low. The memorable performances on Broad–
way-one that I haven't mentioned was by Peter Bull as Tetzel in a
remarkable scene in
Luther
in which he sells indulgences to the theater
audience-are not by Americans. One simply gets used to the fact that,
in the average Broadway production, no one below the one or two
principals can act. Indeed, one is lucky if the principals can act. And
things are even worse off Broadway. Most off-Broadway productions
seem committed to amateurism. One is spared that bellowing, stagey
voice of the Broadway theater, "projecting" all the way to the last
row in the second balcony. But that's only because the theaters off–
Broadway are so small.
On Broadway, poor plays are often given better productions than
they deserve. Off-Broadway, good plays and merely prententious ones
alike are served up with the same bemusing shoddiness. In last year's
mocked-up repertoire of "absurd plays" at the Cherry Lane there were
productions of Genet's
Deathwatch
and Beckett's
Endgame
that made
it literally impossible to detect-unless one had seen them done else–
where-that these were, possibly, beautiful plays. For this reason, I am
reluctant even to mention the current production of U go Betti's
Cor–
ruption in the Palace of Justice.
I had never read or seen this play before
seeing it last month at the Cherry Lane. It's now my impression that
this is a dull, banal, pretentious play, done with all the heavy-handed
flatness it deserves. I read the play in Italian after seeing it, wondering
if
perhaps it was the fault of the translation. I still don't know.
If
it is a
good
play, I won't know until this performance is erased by another.
There is one good off-Broadway production, however, and it is
probably the only thing around that one can recommend without qualifi–
cation. Genet's
The Maids
is at the new Aldana Theater (One Sheridan
Square), directed by AIdo Bruzzichelli, who will also put on Genet's
