Papp's Curtain at Lincoln Center

When he became head of theater at Lincoln Center four years ago, Producer Joseph Papp promised the equivalent of a New Deal for drama in New York City. Last week, in a more somber mood, Papp, 55, announced he was quitting the center to concentrate on his experimental theaters in Lower Manhattan. In language that a bureaucrat might envy, he described his move as a "strategic withdrawal forward."

Most others would describe it as a retreat. Though Papp has raised his box office receipts at Lincoln Center to a current high of nearly $4 million, costs have risen alarmingly; this season's budget was $6.2 million, up more than a third from last season. Foundation and government support, on which Papp's ventures have always depended, has been shrinking. He has managed to cover his Lincoln Center deficits only by using the Broadway profits of his phenomenally successful A Chorus Line, which started off as an innovative musical in Papp's downtown Public Theater.

The figures tell only half the story. Papp was never happy at Lincoln Center. He has always been at his best working with new playwrights, and he gave a start to a new generation of young writers--David Rabe, Jason Miller, David Rudkin--who would not have been let in the front door by more profit-minded producers. The classics--with the exception of Shakespeare--make Papp nervous. He never felt at home with Lincoln Center audiences, who demanded at least some older plays to balance the new. Said Papp last week: "I feel I cannot grow at Lincoln Center. It's a showcase, not a place where things develop."

Finally there was the seemingly insurmountable problem of the Vivian Beaumont Theater itself. Designed with flexibility in mind, it has proved to be remarkably rigid, combining the bad qualities of both theater in the round and traditional proscenium stage--with the advantages of neither.

Papp's decision caught Lincoln Center officials off guard, and for the moment they have no plans beyond a search for other producers. They may not be easy to find. Papp is the second tenant to fail at the Vivian Beaumont. "This is a sort of bad-luck house," says Bernard Gersten, his associate producer. "It has not yet worked for anybody. I hope it will."

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