Report from the Road

Artistically, the 1959-60 Broadway season so far has been one of the worst in memory. While box office in general is better than ever, 18 shows have folded since September; of three openings last week (see THEATER), two were outright failures. But theatergoers hopefully looked toward the road, where a batch of late-season entries were getting ready for Manhattan. Among the more interesting:

Caligula, an early work (1944) by the late novelist-playwright Albert Camus, is a study of the fourth and weirdest of the twelve Caesars, which seeks to show that there was a kind of existentialist method in the young emperor's madness --a rebellion against the cruel limitations of the human condition. Star: Kenneth (Look Back in Anger) Haigh, with Colleen Dewhurst. The New Haven Register's Robert J. Leeney called it "brilliant, baffling, raw and rich." (Broadway opening: Feb. 16.)

The Cool World, an adaptation of Warren Miller's novel (TIME, June 15), has a cast of young Negroes re-creating adolescent gang 'life in Harlem. After watching a gremlin-bugged Philadelphia opening (sandwiches flew from plates, breakaway bottles seemed made of high-grade steel, actors slipped and slid on the turntable set), Inquirer Critic Henry Murdock called it a "disturbing play, so close to commentary on a current scene that one wishes it might also have been a more effective play." (Feb. 22.)

The Tumbler, a verse play by Benn W. Levy, is directed by Sir Laurence Olivier. Farmer Charlton Heston meets Rosemary Harris in a barn. After they make love at first sight, she learns that he is her stepfather and the possible murderer of her father. As the mystery plays out, wrote the Boston Globe critic, "Levy's verse-speech sometimes glows with beauty, often is shrouded in mists of obscurity . . . But his play has power." (Feb. 24.)

Toys in the Attic, by Lillian Hellman in a Tennessee Williams vein, had Boston audiences/coughing and ho-humming through a talky first act, but soon caught their attention with enough incest, adultery, miscegenation and fornication to keep a three-toed sloth awake for a month. Starring Maureen Stapleton, Irene Worth and Jason Robards Jr.., it is the first original play in nine years by Dramatist Hellman (The Little Foxes, The Children's Hour). Wrote the Boston Record's Elliot Norton: "She has written wisely, often wittily, and her point of view is provocative. But the basic story seemed just a little forced." (Feb. 25.)

A Thurber Carnival is a retrospective review attempting to bring to the stage some of the humorist's funniest work. Directed by Burgess Meredith, with a cast that includes Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford and Alice Ghostley, the show played St. Louis last week, midway in a six-city tryout tour. When Thurber himself missed the St. Louis opening, his wife explained that her near-blind 65-year-old husband was in his hotel room energetically polishing and rewriting lines. Wrote cautious Globe-Democrat Critic Herbert L. Monk: "A Thurber Carnival does seem to have the makings of a hit." (Feb. 26.)

There Was a Little Girl, a Joshua Logan production, stars Jane Fonda, 22-year-old daughter of Henry. In the original script, she shared a motel bed with a rapist (Sean Garrison), and four-letter words crossed the footlights like crossbow bolts. That was too much for the mothers and fathers of Boston, whose reaction was so vivid that the language was cleaned up and the motel scene changed to a bar. (Feb. 29.)

The Good Soup, by Felicien Marceau, adapted by Garson Kanin, uses one of the theater's favorite recipes, the life story of a prostitute. In her older years she is Ruth Gordon (her first Broadway appearance since The Matchmaker); in her younger years she is Diane Cilento. Both are onstage much of the time, the old whore passing comment on the young. Among her lovers and clients: Sam Levene, Ernest Truex. The play was favorably received in Philadelphia by two out of four reviewers. The News, whose regular critic was barred from the theater by Producer David ("The Abominable Showman") Merrick for being five minutes late, called it "an indigestible mixture of sex and booze, sex and gambling, sex and broken homes." (March 2.)

Greenwillow, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, is based on B. J. Chute's novel about a family that suffers from wanderlust. Four seasons ago, Loesser converted Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted into The Most Happy Fella. The present show, starring Tony Perkins in pursuit of Zeme North was described by the Philadelphia Bulletin's Ernie Schier as "a collection of bits and pieces" and "unwieldy." (March 3.)

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