(2 of 4)
Longshoreman-Philosopher Eric Hoffer chats again with Eric Sevareid on many subjects, including politics, the urban crisis, intellectuals, writing and death.
THEATER
HADRIAN VII is a deft dramatization by Peter Luke of fantasy and fact in the life of Frederick William Rolfe, a would-be priest who dreamed of being called first to the cloth and then to the throne of St. Peter—becoming the second English Pope in history. With an outstanding command of technique and a wealth of small mannerisms under perfect control, Alec McCowen displays Rolfe's narcissism and cunning, his insincerity, vulnerability and genuine religious obsession. His performance may well be one of the major theatrical events of the decade.
FORTY CARATS is a comedy with Julie Harris as a middle-aged divorcee and Marco St. John as the young man who successfully woos her with ouzo. Directed with crisp agility by Abe Burrows, the play is never less than civilized fun.
PROMISES, PROMISES is an imitation of past successes, with a plot from the Wilder-Diamond film The Apartment and a structure borrowed from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Jerry Orbach and Marian Mercer turn in the best performances of the evening.
JIMMY SHINE. Playwright Murray Schisgal, attempting a journey through mood, psyche and character, fails to go anywhere. But Dustin Hoffman is so obviously pleased with himself that it is difficult for anyone in the audience not to be just as satisfied.
ZORBA, Producer-Director Harold Prince seems to have tried to fashion a sequel to his Fiddler on the Roof, thinly camouflaged with a Greek accent. But Zorba isn't Jewish, and the miscasting and bogus bouzouki music scarcely ever evoke the characteristic tone of Levantine lament.
KING LEAR is the best work that the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater has ever offered. Lee J. Cobb, aided by a supporting cast that truly supports, gives the best performance of his career in the title role.
Off Broadway
LITTLE MURDERS. This revival of Cartoonist Jules Feiffer's first full-length play still suffers from being a series of animated cartoons spliced together rather than an organic drama. What Feiffer does achieve, with the aid of Alan Arkin's masterful direction and a remarkably resourceful cast, is social observation that is razor sharp.
DAMES AT SEA. This friendly parody of the old Busby Berkeley-type movie musicals of the '30s, has a thoroughly engaging cast headed by Bernadette Peters, and some of the most ingenious staging currently on or off Broadway.
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK is a warm, loving tribute to the late Lorraine Hansberry, put together from her own writings. The interracial cast, ably directed by Gene Frankel, works well as an ensemble to thread an elegiac mood through the range of comedy, rage, reminiscence and introspection.
TEA PARTY and THE BASEMENT. In all Harold Pinter plays, the surface is never the substance, and the meaning lies in the eye and mind of the beholder. In Tea Party, a middle-aged manufacturer of bidets is pushed into what may be his death throes by the interactions of his secretary, his wife, and his wife's brother. The Basement deals with the relations of two men and a girl who share a basement flat.
CINEMA