Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-12-28


time on five productions. Dozen
stars such as Mary Martin and
sang and danced for the first tin
unemployed. Dressing rooms
will have been cleared of
creams and facial tissues, and
those grease paint soiled dress
ing gowns, kimOnOs, and bath
robes will have been ready for
the cleaner.
Angels Financial backers)
will weep and producers will
plunge more deeply and desper-
ately into speculation as to what
has happened to the theater this
season.
With the Gross National Pro
duct having just exceeded 800
billion dollars in value, there's
money around. Where? In Chi
cago, for one place, where in
three hours tomorrow afternoon
the National Football League
championship game will draw a
million dollars. That's more
than all the plays on Broadway,
and off-Broadway, drew in eight
performances each this week.
What price culture? What
price cultural shock
- -
THE VICTIMS: The flop
epidemic was not unanticipated.
The productions now in their
final hours we're less than per-
feet, also less than warmly
welcomed.
The most ambitious of the
quintet is Jennie" II cost a
fortune to produce, would have
required a couple of seasons to
pay off its investment. It was
scaled in a large theater to
produce s9l 900 weekly, yet with
Mary Martin as its star, it
played this week to some $780,
900 worth Of empty seats.
Jennie" was found drab by
the critics, but a play they found
sophisticated, witty, and all that
will be dying just as definitely
tonight. This one is Frances
Jean Anouilh's 1.-THE
Rehearsal" a dark comedy out
of its authors deep pessimism,
which may become deeper with
the fate of 1.-THE Rehearsal"
Anouilh's play could be the most
significant among tonight'S cas-
ualties. 1t has been drawing one
fourth houses weekly of late.
The third fatality is MAN and
Boy" GRATED by Terence Ratti-
gan one Of the best of the Gus
tom playmakers, and with no
less a star than Charles Bower
as its headliner. Like Jennie"
with Miss Martin, MAN and
Boy" proves there is less and
less insurance in a big star
name; a mere quarter of its
potential audience recently.
"The Irregular Verb to
Love-" another victim. had
double star insurance in the
presence of Claudette Colbert
and Cyril Ritchard. They kept
going for Is weeks, but when it |
slipped to one-sixth of a capaci-
ty audience during the ineseca-
pable pre-Christmas lull, the
bell began to toll.
Love and Kisses" which will
call it a life tonight, after a
mere two weeks, will be making
one of the seasons quicker
exits. This, however, was not
unexpected as the fate for the
comedy starring Larry Parks
and Mary Pickett. Coming to
Broadway the week before
Christmas, it found the tradi-
tiOnal good will of the season
utterly absent in the hearts of
critics. The curtain went up, six
shots rang out, and that was
that.
THE SURVIVORS: With so
much of black crepe being
tr allie d through Manhattan's
holiday tinSel, the mourners of
the theater's fate looked with
greater curiosity than usual this
week at Variety's boxoffice
reports.
These were not encouraging,
even for the surviving produc-
tons, and even making allow
ance for that pre- Christmas lull .
which is inevitable.
One looked, for instance, at
those two most-talked-of plays
of Edward Albee, who's At