Theater: Pay-TV Show

The Impossible Years contains every cliche ever put on magnetic tape for a family-situation series, every joke bandied about virginity since the Etruscans, and every stereotyped symbol of the rock-‘n’-roll rebel from blue jeans to narcotics. All the pay-TV show at Broadway’s Playhouse Theater lacks is a knob to turn it off.

The problem: Can a psychiatrist father who is writing a book about the problems of teen-agers cope maturely with his own young hell-kittens? The resolution: no.

In between, the noise quotient would abash a pneumatic drill. Unfortunately, some of the lines can still be heard. Sample gag—Daughter: “Daddy, if there’s one thing I’d never do, it’s drink.” Father: “Just wait till you have a daughter like you, YOU’LL DRINK.”

Alan King, one of the pooh-bahs of show biz, plays the psychiatrist with two alternating expressions. He pops his eyes like the late Benito Mussolini, and he breaks into a slow-burn grin like a pregnant volcano. This gives him wice the comic range of the play.