Stilled Voice

In producers' nightmares, there is one recurring terror: the Broadway opening with a surefire smash, and no reviewers aboard to hail it--a fate nearly as bad as the common torture of watching the grim-faced judges show up to pan a feared-for turkey. Last week one dreamed terror became real. A strike forced Manhattan's seven major dailies into silence (see PRESS) and only one of the city's four new Broadway plays (S. N. Behrman's The Cold Wind and the Warm) had the full tide of critical scrutiny. Dutifully, reviewers hunched down in aisle seats and saw their appraisals through the typewriter. Theater pressagents soon had mimeographed copies of neatly excerpted reviews ready, but only the playgoer passionate enough to watch for critical summaries on radio and TV got the impact of first-nighters' verdicts. The score:

P: From all but Manhattan's critical dean, the New York Times's Brooks Atkinson, the touring Old Vic production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night drew warm approval. Judith Crist of the Herald Tribune thought it "a delightful comedy augmented by charm and grace," but Atkinson rated the show "uninspired."

P: Trailing clouds of tryout praise, Archibald MacLeish's J.B. found Manhattan critics in a virtually unanimous yea-saying mood. Said Atkinson: "One of the memorable works of the century as verse, as drama and as spiritual inquiry . . . The performance is magnificent." Comparing it to Our Town and On Borrowed Time for theatrical effectiveness, John Chapman of the News added: "A magnificent production of a truly splendid play." "Not only beautiful stage poetry," wrote the Post's Richard Watts, "but also a fine drama that is as emotionally moving as it is sensitively thoughtful."

P: Grinning at the capers of Star Walter Slezak, reviewers found The Gazebo a slim, satisfactory minor delight. The plot has "a certain sloppiness," wrote the Herald Tribune's Walter Kerr, but otherwise the play is "delightfully contagious."

Although caught with their critics grounded, none of the plays seemed bogged in worry. Advance sales for the prestige-laden Old Vic totaled more than $200,000, and whispers of the raves for J.B. spread rapidly. Before the box office opened on the morning after, a shivering line of 200 waited for tickets.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.