The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 32

6'C iHLjjjHVIlLl TENNESSEAN, Sunday. Oct. 17, 1965 Art and Theater Great Week New York! Theater Tour Could Not Have Chosen Better Time S5 I t1 v' iQiV 1 ysPPx iMglii PiaaiiiiPil iwplilliilif Vi-y vav I 1 ispkra n. I mm i fell-1- wdi 0 Tmii rri i rs J- Lefkovitz of Sparta, and her daughter, Mrs. S.

I OUT OlOUp: Raipn Gordon, left, of Nashville look over the posters of the how "LUV" at the Booth Theater in New York. They attended the show Thursday. II If CJvnanra'. null OlXpenCe star of "Half a Sixpence" at Miss Martha McRedmon of Sawyer of Brentwood visit the Broadhunt Theater. Nashville, left, and Miss EJhtne backstage with Tommy 'Zl By CLARA HEIRONYMUS TENNESSEAN Drama Critic TWEW YORK We could hardly have chosen a more interest-' ing or auspicious week to be in New York.

With last week's theater tour to this city, under the sponsorship of THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN, representing the 20th semiannual such visit ten years of interest in theater we wanted it to be a memorable week. The schedule of plays and activities for the 175 members ef the group would have been enough to send everyone home Wednesday fully content with their five-day trip. Of the four Broadway shows they saw "Any Wednesday." "Fiddler on the Roof," "Half a Sixpence," and "Luv" the latter three are SRO and "Any Wednesday" a long-run laugh-'Z maker that sells out every weekend. As for "Fiddler," It has alii ready become a classic of the musical stage and, like "Hello, Dolly," la almost impossible to I- get tickets for. Only the fact that we made our request so long ago accounts for the block of tickets for the thea-1- ter tour.

I- In addition to this solid sampling of Broadway hits, members of the tour group 'I spent a day at the New York World's Fair, seeing it in the last week of its two-year run in Flushing Meadows, and help-ing to bring its two-year at-Zl tendance total to 22 million. Extras Added I These, as we said, were the planned events. But the extras available this particular week offered so much to dazzle and delight that it seemed made to order to help us celebrate our anniversary unforgettably. First, all of us rejoiced with New Yorkers that this week saw the end of the 25-day newspaper strike. Then there was the spectacular National Decoration and Design Show jointly sponsored by the Resources Council, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Interior Designers and the home furnishing industry.

With dozens of room settings and vignettes arrayed In the huge and historic 7th Regiment Armory, the show was planned to illustrate to the public the skills of the professional interior decorator, and the newest products and ideas in the home furnishings field. Tenresseans feasted their eyes there on Yale Burge's room, done for Scalamandre and Stark Carpets in which velvet walls and silk draperies set off exquisite French furniture and a rug of 18th century needlepoint design, or Du Pont's three-room suite with a carpeted conservatory, or U.S. Plywood's great hunting lodge paneled in worniv chestnut and equipped with a tremendous freestanding fireplace. Design Center Displays In addition, this was the week the National Design Center had its "ten best dressed rooms" on display. For those in this 20th semiannual anniversary tour who love the objects and artifacts of the past, the New York Fair was fortuitously timed for their visit here.

Set up in another of this city's great ft ni inr ni lorn 1 1 ii 1 i' iiiwmt-iirnni linmimiMi mm J. -1 i fe I I Yffl -I I (I 4 S2 jb III' 41 iJoSMl, iiimi i.iiiiiiaifi TMa (MX DDMD Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung Ton in the Closet and Tm Feeling So Sad." Of? armory buildings, the 71st Infantry Armory, the antiques fair offered collectibles that ranged from rare aang-de-boeuf porcelains to Georgian silver and American furniture. "Madama Butterfly" was heard for the first time this season at the Metropolitan Opera last week, marking the debut of Soprano Renata Scot-to and the Met's 81st and final season in its old home. Opera devotees on THE TENNESSEAN theater tour also had the opportunity to hear "Faust," "Arabella." "Don Carlo," or "Queen of Spades" from the famed Met scage. Visual Art Offered Tour guests also had a rich choice of visual art during the week.

A monumental bronze sculpture, the latest in a series of reclining figures by Henry Moore, had just been installed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Commissioned three years ago by a grant from the Albert A. List Foundation, it is on permanent loan to the city of New York. The six-ton, two-piece sculpture, the largest ever created by the 67-year-old British artist, is set in an 80 by 120-foot reflecting pool. It stands 16 feet high and 30 feet wide in the pool, whose bottom and sides have been painted black in order to reflect the lower surfaces of the sculpture with more clarity.

At the Museum of Modern Art, a just-opened show of paintings and collages by Robert Motherwell gave art-minded theater tour guests occasion to see this artist's first major New York retrospective show. The museum also intrigued some of them with its "Structures for Sound Musical Instruments by Francois and Bernhard Baschet," to which they listened through individual earphones. The unconventional instruments, developed during the past 12 years by the French sculptor Francos Baschet and his brother Bernard, a professional sound engineer, are made of glass rods and various metals, such as iron, steel and aluminum; white plastic balloons, cardboard cones and metal sounding foils are used as amplifiers. The instruments are played bv musicians using moistened finders, rubber mallets or bows, or are plucked like a harp or played like a piano. Their diverse sounds bear resemblance to such various instruments as African drums, bells, stringed instruments and brasses.

An exhibit of "Banners U.S.A.," done by 17 contemporary artists was of special interest to some, as was the one-man show of Memphis painter, Paul Penczner. at the Lynn Kottler gallery. Jewels Auctioned Among more esoteric pleasures available to the group was the Parke-Bernet auction has appeared here in SHk-spearean productions in Central Park and in the longrun hit. "Camelot," among ther credits. Z.Z There'll be other openjns during the season, but yoiucaa see that last week, whiter 175 members of THETENNESSKMT3 20th semi-annual theater iUght were here, was one foftlm record.

Theater To Hold: sT Try-outs rpHEATER Nashville is holding for Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" this afternoon at 2 p.m. at the V.A. Theater on White Bridge Road. Characters include a mature woman, her 19-year-old son, 'a 21-year-old daughter and a young gentleman caller. The play, recently revived in New York with notable success, will ha the second production in Theater Nashville's season and will run Nov.

26 through Dec. 4. C- B. Anderson is directing. Jean Kerr's "Mary, Mary," opens tha season Thursday night, Oct.

21, for nine performances. Other upcoming productions Include "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson's "Lost in the Stars," and Days," a British comedy hit. A new schedule is being Initiated by Theater Nashville whereby a special Sunday night performance at 7, p.m. replaces the Monday night show. Tickets for "Mary, Mary" can be obtained by calling 291-3473.

Season tickets, are also available from any artist member. Prices for single tickets will run from $1.75 to depending on the show snd time of the week. Season tickets, at $7.50, are good for any performance for any' of the five productions. 111 ffiS Photo by Ezra Stoller A A nni imonffll rr -res six-ton work of sculpture in two pieces, the latest VIOnUmeniai DlOriZe: i a 8eries of reclining figures by Henry Moore, was recently placed in the 80 by 120-foot reflecting pool in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. On permanent loan to the City of New York, it stands 16 feet high and 30 feet wide.

It is one of New York's new landmarks, installed just in time to be seen by members of THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN'S 20th semi-annual theater tour to New York last week. news that two of the original three performers in "Luv" were to be out of the cast when we saw the Murray Schisgal comedy. Eli Wallach is making a film and will return after the end of November, and Alan Arkin has been replaced by Gabriel Dell. Only Anne Jackson carried the same role. However, the) comedy did not suffer by the changes, and Larry Blyden was a good choice for the Wallach spot.

In selecting the plays for this tour we had tried to get the instant hit, "The Odd Couple," starring Walter Mat-thau and Art Carney, but could not get any quantity of seats during the designated week. Here, we were lucky, though, of course, no one could have foreseen the past week's breakdown and hospitalization of Art Carney. As we feared though this was purely a hunch, as we told the luncheon group at Belle Meade Country Club In a talk on theater last month "Hot September" did not make the grade. A musical version of William Inge's "Picnic," the play folded in Boston. Lake another adaptation of a season ago, "110 in the Shade" which was based on Carroll Naish's "Rainmaker," it underwent a fatal desiccation in the process of being transformed.

Three new musicals which opened earlier this month, to mixed notices, were "Pickwick," loosely based on Dickens' writings; "Generation," with Henry Fonda as the star; and "Drat the Cat." with Bar-bra Streisand's husband, Elliott Gould co-starring with Lesly Ann Warren. Other Openings Seen During the theater flight's stay, there were other openings and a preview run. Previewed was "The Royal Hunt of the Sun," Peter Shaffer's epic drama about the conquest of the Incas by 167 Spanish soldiers in the 16th century. Starring Christopher Plummer, David Carradine and George Rose. Tha fantastically costumed piece was a London success last season.

Opening were "Entertaining Mr. Sloan," a four-character sex comedy by Joe Orton (and winner of the London Critics' Award as the best new British play of 1964) "The Impossible Years," in which comic Alan King made his Broadway debut; "The World of Charles Aznavour," a limited engagement of the French singer-composer-actor; and, off-Broadway, "An Evening's Frost," which was a selection of Robert Frost's works, and "Minor Miracle," which both opened and closed during our week here. Late September had brought Arlene Francis back to Broadway rn a play which the critics didn't care much for Mrs. Dally" but which they generally conceded presented Miss Francis In the finest acting performance in her career. Mixed notices (and the bad luck of an opening during the newspaper strike) makes the future of another September show rather precarious.

Ruth Gordon's "A Very Rich Woman," in which Miss Gordon herself stars, has not been hospitably received. Too bad, for it has some wonderful old-time actors in its cast 87-year-old' Ethel Griffies, Madge Kennedy, Ernest Truex, Larry Oliver and Raymond Walburn. Although the play itself somehow doesn't sound overly appealing to me, I'd have liked seeing Tuesday's opening of "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," a musical about a girl with extra-sensory perception. I'd like to have seen It for a number of reasons. For one thing, it stars Barbara Harris who came to Broadway via Chicago's "Second City" revue and the off-Broadway production of "Oh Dad, Poor Dad" and a charmer in both and it not only has book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, but is designed by Oliver Smith and costumed by Freddy Wittop.

(Nashvillian's saw Wittop's work recently when "Holiday on Ice" was at the auditorium). And. as a final inducement, "On a Clear Day" co-stars John Cullum, a fine actor-singer from Knoxville. Cullum Tuesday of the rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topazes and pearls from the collection of precious stone jewels owned Dy the late Hrlena Rubinstein, and the black tie preview showing on Wednesday of the Bracque jewels along with an important collection of Fauve paintings at the Wally F. galleries.

The cocktail buffet opening was for the benefit of the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Club of which Col. Serge Obolensky is president. But all of these delights are only the lagniappe that accompanies a theater flight to New York. The first order of business and the true excite ment are, of course, theater. October is the month for a flood of Broadway openings, real springtime season for professional theater, and naturally a keyed-up time to be here.

Of the 15 hold-overs from last season, nine are musicals and five are comedies, the one drama being the Pulitizer Prize winner, "The Subject Was R.oses." Another drama, Tennessee i 1 1 i a s' "The Glass Menagerie," which enjoyed a first-rate revival and was also carried over from the preceding season, closed just before our arrival here. Among the carry-overs, "Hello, Dolly" now starring Ginger Rogers; "Fiddler on the Roof," with Luther Adler as Tevye; and "Funny Girl," with inimitable Barbra Streisand, are virtually impossible to get tickets to. The box office reply to requests for reservations at each of them is to "take your chances at curtain time" in case someone canceled out a single "The situation with respect to "Funny Girl" may change after Christmas Day when Streisand leaves the cast to be replaced by Mimi Hines, though changes in the star roles in "Dolly" and "Fiddler" didn't alter the standing-room-only status of either of those two musicals. We were disappointed at the Cljll Uaro, Arthur Kopit's comedy, "Oh Dad, Poor Oil II nere: Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad" has been held over at Circle Theater another night. Performance tonight starts at 8:30 p.m.

Stars include Barbara Moore, C. B. Anderson, Sandra Locke and Gary Cober, plus a live seven-foot boa constrictor. I if fOTf Us; 1 i ''V' WvF i r.jWr.rtt.V",, PICTURES PAINTINGS MIRRORS' At Artict Cnl lllri Lewi Burton used thread, textile, paper and ink Al AAI Ildl V7UIIU. in this abstract composition included in his one-man show of collages on display today through Oct.

31. In Lewis Burton Show: torn paper collage in pale tones with fragments of calligraphy. It will be on display at the Guild Galleries, old Sudekum house, through Oct. 31. Staff photos by Terry Tomlin Glue on Foil: sAomehca0iod; relief of a Celtic cross, done with glut on foil, becomes also a figure of an armored man.

It is included in a one-man show by Lewis Burton, opening today at the Nashville Artist Guild galleries. TENNESSEE MIRROR COMPANY 2024 West End Ave. 55-l88 ''ilililililj.