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Carnival! The magic world of a Continental circus comes alive in this pleasant and colorful reprise of the movie Lili. Anna Maria Alberghetti sings engagingly as the waif, and Jerry Orbach is the deft and terrible-tempered puppetmaster, but nimble Pierre Olaf tops the show in a jubilant dance.
A Far Country. This study of Sigmund Freud and his famous patient Elizabeth von Ritter, although somewhat broken in impact, provides an often vibrant blend of theater and truth. The play offers a vital portrait of Freud (Steven Hill), a crucial delineation of Elizabeth (Kim Stanley).
Big Fish, Little Fish. An honest, unhackneyed, sometimes labored comedy about a has-been editor who lands in the frying pan of false success.
Mary, Mary. Jean Kerr's often funny, always likable, verbal pingpong match between a wisecracking divorcee and her publisher husband is just diverting enough to overcome the rather thin narrative.
The Devil's Advocate. High-intentioned and penetratingly provocative, this play, which asks the large questions, is nonetheless too theatrical.
Irma La Douce. Paris, prostitutes and England's sprightly Elizabeth Seal in a frothy, piquant French musical.
Rhinoceros. Conformity gets a rhinoceros-hiding in lonesco's funny but farfetched allegory.
All the Way Home. Despite its inadequacies, more small coins of pure silver and less stage money than any other American play of the season.
Also recommended: Camelot, A Taste of Honey, Advise and Consent, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
Off Broadway
Brightest on the byways: Under Milk Wood, a lyrical evocation of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' imaginary town; Call Me by My Rightful Name, a fresh look at interracial misfits by New Playwright Michael Shurtleff; The American Dream, Edward Albee's subdued but effective dissection of modern man; The Connection, a relentless study of narcotics and nihilists; The Zoo Story, another Albee commentary, wedded to Samuel Beckett's monologue, Krapp's Last Tape; In the Jungle of Cities, Bertolt Brecht's intriguingly offbeat early effort; Hedda Gabler, an excellent production of the Ibsen classic; and the durable Brecht-Weill-Blitzstein classic, The Threepenny Opera.
On Tour
Becket. Arthur Kennedy as the archbishop and Sir Laurence Olivier, a formidable Henry II. Philadelphia, May 1-6. Reopening on Broadway: May 8-27.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Lanterns and Lances, by James Thurber. More fun than a barrel of money.
Phaedra and Figaro, translated by Robert Lowell and Jacques Barzun. Two dramas of sexuality, one tragic and one comic, rendered with a high skill that does justice to the fiery poetry of Racine and the bubbling word play of Beaumarchais.
Some People, Places, and Things That Will Not Appear in My Next Novel, by John Cheever. Pursuing the invisible fly in the embittering ointment of their lives, John Cheever's decent middle-class people drop into a limbo of alcoholic oblivion, sexual promiscuity and lonely despair that very much resembles hell.
Snake Man, by Alan Wykes. An engrossing portrait of a legendary eccentric of British East Africa, C.J.P. lonides, whose passion is the care and capture of snakes.