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THE PRICE. Among the many dusty relics of the past in a family attic, the two brothers who are Arthur Miller's characters find living memories and smoldering emotions.
Off Broadway
A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN, one of Eugene O'Neill's last plays, laments a loveless trio. W. B. Bydon, Salome Jens and Mitchell Ryan give poignant portrayals of three emotional cripples hiding their numerous afflictions beneath much blather and rant. Theodore Mann directs a lightly tuned production at the Circle in the Square.
THE BOYS IN THE BAND. Playwright Mart Crowley's characters are first of all wonderfully human. Secondarily, they are homosexual. Kenneth Nelson, Leonard Frey and Cliff Gorman lead a sharply honed cast through dialogue of lacerating wit and excruciating humor.
JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, and meanwhile, in Manhattan, four performers render his songs with both passion and compassion.
THE NEGRO ENSEMBLE COMPANY alternates Peter Weiss's Song of the Lusitanian Bogey with Daddy Goodness, by Richard Wright and Louis Sapin.
YOUR OWN THING slides Shakespeare's Twelfth Night into the 20th century with rock music and the unisex look of the with-it generation. Leland Palmer lends rag-doll insouciance to a perpetual-motion Viola.
SCUBA DUBA. Bruce Jay Friedman's tense comedy makes a mockery of the sacred cows and shibboleths of an illiberal liberal. Jerry Orbach is the manic hero run amuck on a Riviera holiday.
RECORDS
SATIE: PIANO MUSIC, VOL. 3 (Angel). Debussy called Erik Satie "a sweet medieval musician who wandered into this century." He made a living playing the piano in the bars of Montmartre, drank with Duchamp, Man Ray and the other Dadaists, and wrote breezy little avant-garde compositions. With their whimsical titles (The War Song of the King of the Beans, Waltz of the Chocolate with Almonds) and seemingly random harmonies, they are surprisingly fresh after 50 years. Much of the credit for the exuberant mood of this record goes to Aldo Ciccolini, who plays with such easy mastery that the listener may not realize the technical skill Satie demands.
CHOPIN: ÉTUDES OPUSES 10 AND 25 (Deutsche Grammophon). Hungarian Pianist Tamas Vasary, 35, continues to build a formidable reputation as a Chopin specialist. This is his twelfth recording of the great Romantic composer, and he compares favorably with the late Dinu Li-patti, particularly in the slower etudes. Vasary seems to have absorbed Chopin's dreamy melancholy. He etches long, unhurried lines of somber melody, but when the music calls for it, he can be a rousing bravura player as well. Opuses 10 and 25 contain some of Chopin's most familiar writing, but in Vasary's hands, one never hears the quotation marks around the tunes.
BRAHMS: FIVE PIANO PIECES; STRAVINSKY: THREE MOVEMENTS FROM PETROUCHKA (RCA Victor). Misha Dichter, 22, is another young pianist of great promise and considerable accomplishment. The Brahms is simple music that demands color and tone from the interpreter, which Dichter supplies confidently; Petrouchka has brought him ovations in recital. The three movements are a showcase for a virtuoso technique, and Dichter cuts loose with a fury of sound. Fortunately, he also reveals a calmer temperament in the balancing poetic passages.