'Oh Dad, Poor Dad,' etc.

As you enter the theatre you are handed a program that, when unfolded, is exactly thirty-four inches wide. That's to accommodate the title: Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. Yes, the smash hit of the Cambridge season two years ago, by Arthur L. Kopit '59, has at last, by way of London, reached the New York boards, where it opened not so many days ago.

Anyone here really interested in theatre either saw the 1960 production or has read the now celebrated script in the Hill & Wang paperback. Furthermore, I and others have had our say about this work and the rest of Kopit's oeuvre on several occasions in these pages. So I need only say now that time has not affected my high opinion of Kopit's vicious farce.

I'm glad to be able to report that the current production is remarkably fine, though it could be still better. The few reservations I have, however, are minor ones.

The show stars Jo Van Fleet as the possessive Mamma of the title. Making her first entrance in an eccentric mourning outfit (beautifully designed, like all the others costumes, by Patricia Zipprodt), she looks for all the world like the Black Lady from a Charles Addams cartoon. She goes through the show in reliably firm control. And she has mastered the art of gesture, and of moving--whether it be simply walking or a waltz or a Latin American rump-shaker. Vocally, she is not yet a hundred per cent effective; but she gets a good deal out of her monumental styganoric narrative. And what she does with the simple epithet "slut" has to be heard to be believed. In all, an impressive performance. Opposite her, Sandor Szabo does admirably in the largely passive role of the Commodore who is a potential successor to dad-in-the-closet.

The chief shortcoming of this production is the performance of Austin, Pendleton as mamma's boy Jonathan, the pivotal role. He is good enough not to spoil the script, but he does not get so close to the real Jonathan as did Rol Maxwell in the Cambridge production. Dressed in the white of innocence, Pendleton enters with a buck-teeth smile, horn-rimmed glasses, and short pants. This is all very well, but his demeanor does not convey the pent-up pressure that will later burst into deeds of violence. In this Jonathan's makeup there is too much Little Lord Fauntleroy and too little James Dean.

The blazing performance of the evening comes from a young actress new to me, Barbara Harris, whose playing of the nymphomaniacal baby-sitter is nothing short of sensational. She gives an impression of spontaneous, almost improvisatory acting, and she succeeds to perfection. She clearly believes in the proverb, Qui n'ose rien n'a rien.

Miss Harris is cunning and vitality personified. Appearing for her big scene in a short pink dress and curls, she looks like the young Shirley Temple. Her ensuing seduction of Jonathan on Mamma's bed is as hilarious a scene as I can recall. And when Dad's corpse enters the proceedings, she uses his arm to punctuate her speech as nonchalantly is one would a fork or pencil at table.

The entire production is under the direction of Jerome Robbins, who has staged it fluidly. The night I attended, it was a bit slow to gather steam; but once it did, there was no flagging thereafter. He staged the waltz scene between Mamma and the Commodore with a knowing eye; and he introduced some fine touches such as having Mamma try to revive her per goldfish by artificial respiration.

His decision to have each of the three scenes introduced by movie projections on a lowered screen effectively points up the satirical aspect of the play. There are crazy title credits worthy of Saul Bass, a flower-watering take-off on the silent cinema, and even a cross-eyed Mona Lisa. Approoutset with a Weillanously blasphemous parody of priate background music has been concocted by Robert Prince, who strikes the right note at the Rossini's Stabat Mater (which is, indeed, blasphemous even in the original), and later summons up remembrances or Mendelssohn's Spring Song and the concluding fanfare of Paramount newsreels.

I think Robbins has carried some of his gimmicking too far, notably the collapsible furniture and the doors that open and close on their own. This is the sort of thing one does to cover up a weak script; here it tends to detract from a strong and self-sufficient script. But the audience relished all of this, and I suppose there's no point in railing against success.

William and Jean Eckart designed the extremely handsome settings. Since the cast includes three Rosepettles, Commodore Rosabove, Rosalie, and Rosalinda the fish--and, for all I know, Jonathan may be keeping a "Rosebud" sled in his closet--it is no surprise that the chief color of the decor (and of some of the costumes) is rose, with which two pieces of orange-upholstered furniture are delightfully inharmonious. And Thomas Skelton's lighting, properly non-realistic, is stunning.

I must express a special word of praise for the marvelous set of Venus'-flytraps executed by Ralph Lee. When they go on their carnivorous rampage, they are positively frightening.

The house attendance record was broken during the play's first week. Those of you who are lucky enough to be in New York during the imminent vacation had better make reservations in advance for the best new American play the city has had all season--and I do not forget Tennessee Williams' latest attempt.

Meanwhile, Kopit is near to finishing a new work, which takes place in the women's and men's wards of "a strange sort of mental hospital," whose inhabitants include a batch of historical personages from different epochs. The play is titled--briefly, for a change--Asylum. Until this reaches the boards, the Phoenix will continue as a profitable asylum.