Broadway is an unhealthy place, in the opinion of Producer Manning Gurian, because of the fallout from all those theatrical A-bombs. Knowing the pain of Broadway radiation burns (in 1948 he brought Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke into Manhattan after a triumphant three-week road tryout only to see Summer go up in smoke), he has devised a classically simple defense: get out of town. His invaluable asset: a wife named Julie Harris.
For years, Producer Gurian has been looking for what might be called a clean bomb—a low-radiation play that he could take on the road before Manhattan critics could blast...