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BLACK COMEDY. What people do, say and discover when suddenly plunged into the dark is the single droll conceit on which Peter Shaffer's convulsively amusing farce is based. An acrobatically agile cast, including Michael Crawford, Geraldine Page and Lynn Redgrave, brings the monkeyshines to a high polish.
THE HOMECOMING is both realistic and surreal, on a mythic yet natural plane, and most unconventionally conventional. While defying the norms of family and society, this domestic drama by British Playwright Harold Pinter is an exercise in instinctual logic. Vivien Merchant and Paul Rogers lead a perfect cast in Peter Hall's pluperfect production.
AT THE DROP OF ANOTHER HAT. Michael Flanders and Donald Swann break into still another diverting ditty, such as that non-classic The Gasman Cometh, or let go with a bit of lopsided logic: "If you put a baby in the bath and it turns red, it's too hot for your elbow."
WALKING HAPPY is the musical version of H. G. Brighouse's near-classic, Hobson's Choice, introducing British Musicomedian Norman Wisdom to Broadway audiences, and a most entertaining acquaintance he is. While the score is pleasantly forgettable, Danny Daniels' choreography is fresh and memorable.
Off Broadway
EH? The hero of Henry Livings' farce is ideologically idiotic. Sample: "I'm satisfactory, all right. Always been satisfactory. All my school reports: satisfactory, satisfactory, satisfactory. 'Satis' meaning enough, 'factory' meaning works. Satisfactory: had enough of work."
AMERICA HURRAH. A most gifted young playwright, Jean-Claude van Itallie, stirs the waters of the contemporary scene to create dramatic whirlpools, investigating three mainstreams of American life in Interview, TV and Motel.
RECORDS
Orchestral
Some sound new investments for the classical music lover have appeared on the market recently. Columbia and London have added low-priced labels—Odyssey and Stereo Treasury—that offer top quality but somewhat older recordings for about $2.50 a record. Capitol has more exciting news. It has succeeded in signing a contract for all Soviet artists and orchestras, and has rushed its technicians to Russia lest any foreign sounds creep in. The label is Melodiya-Angel, and the first issues are excellent.
The imports:
STRAVINSKY: L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT and PROKOFIEV: QUINTET, OPUS 39 (Melodiya-Angel). Written at the end of World War I, Histoire is a clever little musical outrage featuring a demented tango, ragtime gone wrong, a satanic mockery of a Bach chorale, and countless other musical japes in the story of a soldier who sells his soul to the Devil, wins it back and finally loses it again. The Prokofiev is also dramatic, originally composed for a ballet about a circus. The Moscow Chamber Ensemble, led by Gennedy Rozhdestvensky, has just the right touch for both: cool, brusque, almost offhandish virtuosity.