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TINY ALICE, the dark lady of Edward Albee's allegory, has baffled critic and playgoer alike; in the impeccable performances of a cast headed by Irene Worth and John Gielgud, pseudo-metaphysics take on theatrical vitality.
LUV. Murray Schisgal sees life as a sickness from which most people recover, and he amusingly deflates the gassy, self-pitying bosh that is talked about it. Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson ride this troika of hilarity.
Off Broadway
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Arthur Miller has expanded his famed 1955 one-acter about a longshoreman's fatal and incestuous jealousy into a powerful drama that approximates, even though it falls short of, the catharsis of Greek tragedy.
THE ROOM and A SLIGHT ACHE. Harold Pinter can be relied on to produce unnerving, dramatic and provocative comedies of terror, and he does it again in these two engrossing one-acters.
RECORDS
Folk & Gospel
THE MITCHELL TRIO: TYPICAL AMERICAN BOYS (Mercury). They look typical enough—conventional haircuts, clean shirts—but when it comes to singing, Chad Mitchell and friends pride themselves on being latter-day Weavers, a combo with a conscience. They specialize in satirical numbers such as Which Hat Shall I Wear (a giddy social type talking to her Negro cleaning woman) and Yowzah ("Shonuf, Yassuh Boss!"), an acid comment on the Uncle Tom refrain. They have three of the smoothest voices in folkdom, and their racial protests, though skimpy in content, are strictly nonviolent to the ear.
TRINI LOPEZ: THE FOLK ALBUM (Reprise). On the theory that a song can hit twice if it can hit once, Trini's first all-folk album consists mostly of other people's winners, such as Puff (the Magic Dragon), Crooked Little Man and We'll Sing in the Sunshine. He does not always listen to the words—Blowin' in the Wind sounds as exuberant as if those are greenbacks blowin', but why not? Trini has become accustomed to their flutter ever since he jammed the jukeboxes with If I had a Hammer two years ago.
ODETTA SINGS DYLAN (RCA Victor). In the space of a year or two, Bob Dylan, the prolific minnesinger from Minnesota, has refurbished the repertory of nearly every folk singer on record. Now Odetta lends her deep, dramatic voice to ten of his songs. She is as authoritative as the Delphic oracle in The Times They Are A-Changin', brave and bluesy in Walkin' Down the Line; but she melts the fierceness of Masters of War into a mere lament.
JOHN JACOB NILES: FOLK BALLADEER (RCA Victor). Niles started learning the folk music of his native Kentucky as a boy, collected more than 1,000 songs by the time of his extensive concert tours in the '30s and '40s, when these ballads (including Mary Hamilton, The Ballad of Barberry Ellen) were recorded. Niles weaves a strange, anachronistic spell as he sings them in a high, sweet voice, strumming a homemade dulcimer.
PETE SEEGER: I CAN SEE A NEW DAY (Columbia). Everyone seems to take his new songs to Pete. Fred Hellerman, for example, handed him his new, gospel-like prayer for Mississippi (Healing River) just before Seeger flew down there last summer. Pete also sings some traditional ballads (Follow the Drinkin' Gourd) and his own haunting Bells of Rliymney.