Word: broadway
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When Miller finished the one-act play a year ago, it ran only an hour and a half. So he prefaced it with a short mood piece for its Boston and Broadway runs last fall. He stated at the time that it should not be lengthened, and was too honest a dramatist just to pad it out, as Tennessee Williams obviously did with Summer and Smoke. After the play failed, a re-examination led him to revise and expand it a bit; but the expansion into two acts, including a couple of important new scenes, adds only about ten minutes...
...Clancy as the lawyer-narrator are all excellent. Jill Kraft is more than adequate as the niece, though her vocal inflections do not always ring true. William Roberts' set is appositely stark and grim, with a suggestion here and there of classical Greek architecture (as in Boris Aronson's Broadway set). Tharon Musser's lighting is always helpful if straightforward...
...other interesting things in a generally dull TV week were two plays, one a drama of life, the other a drama of death. Anita Loos's Happy Birthday on NBC's Producers' Showcase (Mon. 8 p.m., E.D.T.) starred Betty Field in the role made famous on Broadway by Helen Hayes. It is the bittersweet tale of how a spinster librarian goes into a bar in pursuit of happiness and finds life and liberty there as well. Betty Field did a creditable job as the librarian in a long and unlikely drunk scene, but was hardly good enough...
...starring Shirley Jones of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Cinemascope fame. The final production of the summer will be Shaw's "Saint Joan," starring the Irish actress Siobhan McKenna, who won great acclaim in the role in Dublin and London a few seasons ago, and who made her American debut on Broadway this past season in "The Chalk Garden...
...more Broadway-minded music lovers, a number of summer theatres in the Boston area will be presenting musical comedies at various times during the season. Indeed, the Music Theatre on the top floor of Boston's air-conditioned John Hancock Building will be presenting one all the time, starting this week with "Annie Get Your...