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MARTIN DUBERMAN
Glory.
There were some splendid production values in
Endecott:
Richard Peaslee's musical score helped to create an appropriately brood–
ing mood; the mad, eclectic costumes by Robert LaVigne suited
the
ribaldry of Merry Mount perfectly; John Wulp's backdrops were lyrical
and mysterious; and Kenneth Haigh's performance as Governor Ende–
cott, nicely captured the essence of a man "pacing in chains through ,
a strange land," that dualistic American, the anguished killer. The suc–
cess of Haigh's performance was due in part, of course, to Lowell's
script. But only in part, for Haigh managed to individualize a role
written largely in generalizations. Indeed the play is essentially un–
theatrical: it talks about action that happens off stage instead of creat–
ing action on it. The static, expository nature of the script was under–
scored by the disastrously slow pacing of John Hancock's direction.
THE REPERTORY THEATER OF LINCOLN CENTER
Lincoln Center continues on its mediocre way. Banality seems to
accompany every gesture - whether in the conventional choice of plays
or in the glossy program notes. The Center has itself become an artifact
of American culture: glittering surfaces, empty insides. Though
this
season has shown little variation on the theme, a partial exception was
the revival of Lillian Hellman's
The
Little Faxes.
The play itself is of
more interest than some reviewers have suggested. Its one-dimensional
characterizations can themselves be taken as part of Hellman's design:
to dramatize how human greed, the single-minded pursuit of possessions
or power, reduces its victims to obsessional husks. Further, the physical
splendor of Howard Bay's sets, the muted elegance of Patricia Zip–
prodt's costumes and some of Mike Nichols' directorial touches (like
the elevation of the black servants into a kind of Greek chorus), gave
the production some unusual interest. But what the Lord giveth he
taketh away. Thanks to Margaret Leighton's "Birdie," who could
be
identified as a lost soul chiefly because her accent traveled uncertainly
between several linguistic worlds, and to Anne Bancroft's cheap charac–
terization of Regina as a kind of undernourished bull-dyke, the pro–
duction, on balance, was only a partial success.
It should be said for Lincoln Center that at its Forum Theater this
season, Ron Cowen, a twenty-two-year-old playwright, made a promis–
ing debut with
Summertree.
I'm somewhat bewildered by my reac–
tion to the play. I kept telling myself it was only
Our
Town
revisited:
the same themes of tender youth, the same tone of borderline sentimen–
tality. But
Summertree
moved me far more
than
Our
Town
ever had.
And I'm not sure why. It may be that Cowen's craftmanship is too
subtle for full appreciation at a single viewing. More likely, the play's
