The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 81

l0 JPftkfotpftia jrapmr SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1960 Drama takes over stae scene '5 Finger Exercise London hit, shares Bill with 'Laurette'. yj7jrA7 jyf AMD THE" op 'ft I i i fi Ji I V-V'-o By BARBARA L. WILSON The theater season's first two-in-one week is upon us. Monday evening, Peter Shaffer's dramatic success, "Five Finger Exercise," arrives at the Walnut. Tuesday, Stanley Young's dramatization of Marguerite Courtney's biography, "Laurette," bows at the Forrest.

Both productions have 8 o'clock opening night curtains. A much-awarded play, "Five Finger Exercise" was named by the London critics as the best script by a new playwright during the 1958-59 season, and was selected by the New York Drama Critics' Circle as the best foreign work of the 1959-60 season. FAMILY BITTERNESS Shaffer writes of a British middle-class family, seemingly happy in their relationships but actually torn by bitterness that erupts in tragedy. The mother, played by Jessica Tandy, is a social climber who believes herse superior to her hardworking husband, portrayed by Roland Culver. Their children are a teen-age daughter and an aesthetic son, depicted by Pinkie Johnstone and Brian Bedford.

To cultivate her boy's artistic tastes, the mother hires a German tutor who has fled his homeland and his Nazi father. The Patrick O'Neal (left), playing John ners. Stanley Young's play based on Gilbert, and Jack Gwillim, as her Marguerite Courtney's biography playwright-husband Hartley Man-V opens at Forrest Tuesday, 8 P. M. In scene from "Laurette," Judy Holliday, portraying title role, remembers her Hollywood days with.

Brian Bedford surprises Jessica Tandy as she comforts Michael Bryant in "Five Finger Exercise," Walnut Monday, 8 P. M. sMolly' has problems Film enhances Inge Star dim, star bright By MILDRED MARTIN It isn't often that the screen version of a stage success may be said to stand head and shoul-" -tiers above its original model. Yet this is emphatically the case in "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," Michael Garrison's production of the William Inge drama which won its footlight spurs in 1957 and took to the strawhat circuits this summer. Fear and insecurity still lurk menacingly at the head of those figurative stairs imagined by Inge and represented by a solid staircase in his play about an family crisis is precipitated when the mother deludes her- self into believing that the tutor (Michael Bryant) loves her.

Produced in this country by Frederick Brisson and The Playwrights' Company and staged by Sir John Gielgud, "Exercise" is a Theater Guild-American Theater Society subscription offering here. PORTRAYS AN IDOL As the star of "Laurette," Judy Holliday is not only creating her first serious stage role but she also is portraying the actress she has idolized for all of her own acting career. A few years ago when Miss Holliday was in Hollywood, George Cukor, who had directed Laurette Taylor in such movies as "Furies" and "Her Cardboard Lover," suggested that he and Miss Holliday make a film biography of Miss Taylor's life. To Miss Holliday's regret the motion picture never took form. But when Stanley Young completed his dramatization and optioned it to producer Alan Pakula both Pakula and director Jose Quintero were of the same mind as Cukor had been earlier, "Judy Holliday i the one to play this part." 40-YEAR FLASHBACK The play opens after the death of Laurette's playwright-husband, Hartley Manners.

She has withdrawn from family and friends, a recluse in her apartment, trying to destroy all memories of their married life. But in her alcoholic retreat, Laurette remembers and through the flashback device she summons up events that cover a 40-year period. Portraying the two men with whom Laurette was romantically involved are Jack Gwillim as Manners and Patrick O'Neal as silent screen star John Gilbert. In other principal roles Bibi Osterwald appears as her Continued on Page 5, Column 1 oy lumo ru hi Orchestra debut By EDWIN H. SCHLOSS Lukas Foss' "Concerto for Improvising Solo Instruments and Orchestra" promises to be one of the most piquant novelties on the burgeoning Philadelphia Orchestra season.

It will be offered at the concerts Friday and Saturday in the Academy of Music. At first blush this new work may seem to represent a hy- ORCHESTRA PROGRAM Eugene Ormandy Conducting Sinfonia for Double Orchestra No. 3 in J. C. Bach Symphony No.

5 Sibelius Concerto for Improvising Instruments and Orchestra Foss Roman Festivals Respighi brid of a new genus a sort of symphonic jam session. But a closer look at this "improvisation" and a few words from the composer dispel that illusion. The work which will have its first performances here was conceived in 1957. "In the spring of that year," says the Continued on Page 6, Column 6 nence," Miss Holliday is approaching her assignment with mixed emotions. She hopes her performance will be accepted as a salute to an actress whom she idolizes, rather than that of a pretender, seeking to match "the star's magic.

While Miss Taylor's 48 years in the theatre ended on a note of triumph, the applause given her performance in "The Glass Menagerie" was preceded by 17 years of desolation and despair, of self-imposed seclusion and abasement, interrupted by but two engagements in New York: Four weeks in two of Sir James Barrie's one-act plays in 1932, and a 27-week run in a revival of Sutton Vane's "Outward Bound" in the 1938-39 season. INTERNATIONAL FAME For the most part Miss Taylor's voluntary exile and tne embarrassments and rumors concurrent with it dated from the death of her playwright-husband, J. Hartley Manners, a reticent, aloof Englishman, disciplined and deliberate, whom she met when she played her first important role in the New York theatre in his "The Great John Ganton" in 1909. They were married two years later on the eve of the opening of "Peg 0' My Heart," the Manners' play in which she would achieve international note and emotionally, as well as financially, disturbed Oklahoma family of the early 1920's. FEARS ARE FACED The characters are still, one by one, made to face their fears.

The intolerance of smalltown mid-Westerners is still pinned down and examined under the microscope of reason. Tragedy still strikes at the very young. And their elders, suffering with them and for themselves, are at last brought to a better acceptance and understanding of life and one another. This, in essence, is really all that Inge was attempting to present in his drama. And it is what shines forth on the screen but with a difference.

The difference in this case being the superb adaptation written by Harriet Frank, and Irving Ravetch which cuts rway the dross, dispenses with lines which made even admirers of Inge uneasy, releases the drama from the confining walls of the Flood family living room and somehow manages to turn the troubled characters into real people as against mere mouthpieces for the author's thoughts and reactions. SCENES ARE ADDED Exercising the utmost freedom, the adapters have added characters and scenes, not officiously, but with great percep- Harve Presnell, who lifts a tenor, alternately liquid and robust, in the male lead. And this situation is due not to the lack of potential voices in the cast, but to the show's peculiar format. TWO-CHARACTER STORY For all the elaborate period settings provided with lavish hand by Oliver Smith Brown" and "Camelot" will set new highs in production costs this year, rumor says) the libretto by Richard Morris, is essentially a two-character story. There are excellent supporting players i Meiser, Mony Dalmes, Cameron Prud'-homme, Mitchell Gregg, to mention just a few but in point of both acting and vocalizing, they are reduced to a lot of heavy standing around.

The burden of the show is thus thrown on Tammy Grimes in the title role and Presnell as her loyal husband. Both respond with vigor. If Miss Grimes does not always bring out the songs in the best manner it may be because she is breathless from playing the arduous role of a newrich Colorado vulgarian with some outrageous and generally funny ideas on seeking status. Parenthetically, it is a role which would tax the re- By RICHARD MANEY Broadway publicist, and an observer of things theatrical. On one of those rare occasions in which they have been in complete agreement, the New York drama critics unanimously voted Laurette Taylor the best actress of the 1944-45 season for her Amanda in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie." This tribute echoed an earlier verdict of Stanislavsky, sire of The Method, when he named Miss Taylor America's finest actress after seeing her play a Jewish mother in Fannie Hurst's "Humoresque" in 1923.

It also confirmed the judgment of such contemporaries as Ethel Barrymore, Katharine Cornell, Helen Hayes, Ina Claire and Tallulah Bankhead. The unanimity of these illustrious ladies was, in a way, as unprecedented as the vote of the reviewers. None of them was notorious for laureling the brow of a rival. SALUTE TO IDOL This comment on Laurette Taylor and her last role in the theater "Glass Menagerie" closed in August of '46 after a run of 561 performances and the star died four months later is pertinent because Judy Holliday, famed for her impersonations of blonde bird-brains on stage and screen, is playing the title role in "Laurette." In-view of Miss Taylor's emi Calendar of ays By HENRY T. MURDOCK More in sorrow than in anger we tapped out our original review of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," reflecting disappointment that Meredith Willson had come up with a show which, on the surface and from the evidence of opening night, was a few furlongs behind "The Music Man." The report in a sense, was a minority one.

The collective opposition was kinder without shattering the skies with reverberating huzzas. We honestly hope such estimate is more correct than ours and in case it is not, the show still has four more weeks for repair here before being summoned before its Broadway court of last resort. WILLSON PATTERN Willson's music follows the exciting pattern he set with his "Music Man" score, mixing rhythm numbers, mellow ballads and clever counterpoint. At the moment, and perhaps for obvious reasons, there doesn't seem to be anything so immediately grasping as the "train" song, or so stirring as "76 Trombones," so novel as "Marian the Librarian" or so appealing as "My White Knight," of the former show. The quality may be there, but it is not given the first-class vocal treatment except from ivies and music Oncurrentprogram PLAY BILL SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO Dore Schary's drama, with St.

John Terrell, concludes at LAMBERTVILLE MUSIC CIRCUS, Sunday evening. FIVE FINGER EXERCISE-Peter Shaffer's drama, with Jessica Tandy and Roland Culver, opens at WALNUT, Mon- Continued on Page 5, Column 3 Continued on Page 3, Column 1 Continued on Page 4, Column 6 pr.ww!Tr 1 mmmmu khr 1 1 a 1 i i 1 ItC if tssxmm ni! jVK ri)' mWW' hVl i 1 rft If li day, 8 P. M. THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN-Meredith Willson and Richard Morris musical, with Tammy Grimes and Harve Presnell, continues at SHU-BERT, Monday evening. LAURETTE Stanley Young's play from the biography by Marguerite Courtney, with Judy Holliday as actress Laurette Taylor, and Jack Gwillim and Patrick O'Neal, opens at FOR- REST, Tuesday, 8 P.

M. MUSICAL EVENTS PHILADELPHIA ORCHES-s TRA Eugene Ormandy con-7 ducting; Paul Callaway, organ soloist, at ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Monday evening. ESCUDERO Spanish gypsy dancer and troupe, at TOWN HALL, Wednesday evening. PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA Ormandy conducting concert, featuring Lukas Foss Ensemble, at ACADEMY, Friday afternoon and Saturday evening. KINGSTON TRIO-Balladiers In concert, at ARENA, Saturday evening.

NEW FILMS THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS -William Inge drama, with Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, Shirley Knight, Angela Lansbury, Eve Thursday. THE CROWDED SKY -Air disaster, with Dana Andrews, Fleming, Efrem Zim-balist, John Kerr, Anne Francis. GOLDMAN, Thursday. SONG WITHOUT END Musical biography, starring Dirk Bogarde as Franz Liszt, with Continued on Page 3, Column Lee Kinsolving (seated) meets members' of Flood family, played by (from left) Robert Eyer, Robert Preston, Dorothy Mc Guire, Shirley Knight and Eve Arden in "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," at the Fox Thursday. (Preview Wednesday.) Capucine, as one of the women in his-life, listens while Dirk Bogarde's Franz Liszt plays a new composition in "Song Without End," at the Randolph Thursday.

(Preview Wednesday.) 8.