The Boston Globe du lieu suivant : Boston, Massachusetts • 33

The Boston Globe Tuesday, April 23, 1968 33 Perfection on Stage West fip Jrw "3B By KEVIN KELLY Globe Drain Critle WEST SPRINGFIELD "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is Eugene O'Neill's unequalled American tragedy, a play of such uncom-promised integrity and power that it very nearly diminishes all the rest of his work. A relentless, sorrowing, ghost-haunted examination of an American-Irish family called Tyrone, it runs almost four hours and makes exhaustive demands on its performers, to say nothing of its audience. It is not an easy play to sustain, either in terms of its eruptive mood or its garrulous characters. But Stage West, a new resident company housed on the Eastern States Exposition site, has made an impressive attempt to capture its tragic sweep, an attempt that finally fails because of two over-extended performances. Nonetheless, the inexorable spirit of O'Neill is in the production, and Stage West is to be commended.

In four acts, written, as O'Neill said, in "tears and blood," the play follows the four Tyrones James and Mary, the father and mother, Jaime and Edmund, their two sons, each one a thinly disguised member of O'Neill's own family through a 15-hour period, on a single August day aging into night. The time is 1912, the scene is the dim, slightly ramshackle Summer cottage of the Tyrones. The intimacy of a tight, loving family unit is presented first, then it is shattered as its members are revealed as guilt-ridden, accusatory human wrecks, each trapped in a past that can never be forgotten, nor escaped, each with a future as bleak as the dismal fog- horn which sounds through most of the evening. The father is a former barnstorming actor who sold his genuine talent for a ca- REAL LIVE DOLLS This is the way Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes appear in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," a musical fantasy based on Ian Fleming's stories about a magical car. (UPI) loston version of Peyton Place Youth Symphony a delight By GEORGE GELLES Globe Critic -It was enormously encouraging Sunday night to see the stage of Symphony Hall filled with the 100 or so musicians of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and to' hear the fine sound these people make.

rehearse together throughout the year and it Shows. The roughness one might expect from a student group isn't there, by and large. I would suppose that the lack of polish in the string sound is due to the qaulity of the instruments, nothing else. This is handsomely, made up by intelligent keen playing. The winds are strong woodwinds especially so and like good professionals, contribute an occasional goof.

The other bit of encouragement was the kids' confrontation with contemporary music. The "Vedie Pronouncements" by Humphrey M. Evans which received its premiere performance-are seven miniatures grouped around a central one ritual and varying iri degrees of freedom given the individual performer. CHEERING Evans the Third has a good ear for mixing colors end textures, as the third section showed, and is alive to theatrical possibilities. I found very effective the bit of baton tapping that called the slouching fagged-out players to attention after the general chaos of the middle movement.

The piece, though squirm-isMy received by the mostly parent audience, got much more, ardent cheering than-vociferous booing at its end. Uncomfortable as it may be, this is one of the places modern music is at. After the curtain raiser, the "Russian and Ludmilla" Overture, everything was 20th century. This is not to say modern though, for. in the pieces by Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Respighi there's little more adventurous than an off-beat.

The works are thought out in a conservative 19th century way, and make conservative demands on the instrumentalists. Even the most advanced among them, Prokofiev's BOOK OF THE DAY for Martha. The saint of Avila, she who believed in and indeed experienced lev-itation, is Teresa, not Theresa (p.44). Yet, to be quite fair, one reviewer, quoted from the jacket, was "enthralled and lost in admiration." Another found the book "a work of genius." Another praised the "wry wisdom" which, alas, evaded this reviewer. Members of the Uxport community 18 miles west of Boston, and of its adjacent academic world will have fun and games trying to guess who's who in this cast of sick, and sickening, characters.

FORTUNATA CALIRI (Miss Caliri is assistant professor of English at Massachusetts State College, Lowell.) father's stinginess. Jaime is a lush, out-of-work, not ambitious, his promise whistled to seed, his psyche blackened with envy and jealously of his brother; and Edmund, with gifts as a writer, is wracked in equal measure by tuberculosis and an overwhelming, Nietzschean pessimism. Singly and collectively, the Tyrones are the modern theater's equivalent to a Greek house hounded by the Furies, and O'Neill has put them before us in all their grief and torment, in all their suffering. "Long Day's Journey" is a great play. Under the direction of James Cromwell, on a well-designed thrust stage, the level of the performance is split evenly in half and, since, there are only four significant roles the Irish maid Cathleen is a plot device, a good one the result is a halfway evening.

Above everything else, however, Ruth Nelson gives FILM ABBEY CINEMA "Th Stranger," 2, 8 10; ASTOR "Samson Delilah." 10. 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 10 p.m. BEACON HILI "The Fox," 10, 12. 2. 4, 6, 8 10 P.m.

Space boston cinerama--2ooi Odyssey," Eves. 8:30, Sun. 7:30 Mat. 2:00 Wed. Sat.

Sun. CENTER "Stay Away Joe," 9:30, 1:25. 5:25. "Cincinnati Kid," 11:35, 3:30,7:30. "30 I8 Danger S.

A. fi. 8 10. CHERI 3 'The Party" 10, 11:40, 1:20, 3, 4:40, 6:20, 8:10, 10. CHERI 2 Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," 10:10, 12:10, 2:10, 4:10, 6:10, 8:10, 10:10.

cheri Cow," 10, 12. 2, 4, 6. 8 10. CINEMA. Kenmore S.

"Bonnie d. 00. CIRCLE CINEMA "No Way To Treat A Lady," 1:30, 3:30. 8:30, 7:30 9:30. exeter theater "Elvira Madi- an." 1:30, 3:05, 4:40.

6:15. 7:55, 9:35. FINE ARTS "Blow Up" 6 10, "Tom 8:00. "UPROARIOUSLY FUNNY" Norton, Hoc. Amer.

MmiOHEBMlDELEl IN THEMLUHGOr SISTER 1 mm EVES. 8:30 MATS. THURS. 2 SAT. 2 JO SATURDAY, APRIL JUhPAN HALL an us of is reer based on a piece of pop- charles cinema-ular trash from which he ous Age Cynthiai extraordinary performance as Mary Tyrone, a performance of unerring skill and control.

Miss Nelson weaves in and out of Mary's mind, weaves between terror and dignity, and shows the ache and the beauty a lost soul. Miss Nelson is perfect. There is, for example, the repeated scene when Mary accused, by her husband, by her sons, of falling back to drugs. She fidgets under their suspicion, her eyes starting with tears and looking off to a forgotten time beyond accusation, then, in an angered flash, she growls at her accusers and assumes a hard, dignified poise which admits nothing. I repeat; Miss Nelson is perfect.

No one else is perfect, but George Abels is good as Edmund. Mr. Abels lacks discipline, particularly in Edmund's outbursts against his father, but he does, at least, understand, and project, the passivity within Edmund. Donald Davis quite clearly TIMES GARY "Gone With the Wind," Daily 8 p.m., Sun, 7:30, Mats. Wed.

Sun. Holi at 2. MUSIC HALL Shorts 11:40, 1:40, 3:40, 5:40, 7:40, 9:40. "The 10-12-2-4-6-8 10. ORPHEUM "Blackbeard'e Ghost," 12:20, 2:40.

4:50. 7:05, 9:30. PARAMOUNT "Secret War of Harry Frigg," 9:30. 11:30. 1:30.

3:30. 6:30, 7:30 and 9:35. PARIS CINEMA "The Graduate." 2.1 4,6, 8, 10. PARK SQUARE CINEMA "The Female," 4. 6, 8, iu.

SAVOY "Planet oi tne Apes," iu. 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 10. SAXON Eve. 8:30 Sun. Sun.

2. SYMPHONY CINEMA I "Closely Watched Trains," 2, 4. 6, 8 10. symphony cinema 11. 1, 3.

8. 7. 9. 1 WEST end the Heat of the Night." 11:20. 1:20, 3:15.

6:15, 7:15, Arthur Fiedler Conductor OPENING APRIL 29 NIGHTLY AT 8:30 SUNDAYS EXCEPTED APRIL 29, THROUGH JUNE 29 ALL SEATS RESERVED ON SALE NOW TICKET PRICES MONDAY THRU THURSDAY $4.50, $4,00, $3.50, $3.00 $2.50, $2.00, $1.50, $1.00 FRIDAY AND SATURDAY $5.00, $4.50, $4.00, $3.50 $3.00, $2.50, $2.00, $1.50 Please enclose atampril addressee envelope with mall order. SYMPHONY HALL CO 6-1492 27, 7:30 10:00 P.M. 30 GAINSBOROUGH Box Office) 536-2412 a he of miscarriages, of marital infidelities, of photographic details of the breeding of a mare, and of the way an aging Freudian psychiatrist takes an enema. When Mrs. Kumin writes of the daily household chores and problems in the home of Hallie and Mellon Peakes she is generally convincing, but credibility is strained in scenes like the one in a Howard Johnson restaurant where, at the top of their voices and in repulsive language Martin Davis and his, wife argue about his need for her to have another baby.

(Where was the Manager?) Yet the jacket blurb announces that "this compelling novel never departs from the substance of real" life." Never before in this reader's experience has Mary Magdalene been a symbol of the domestic woman (p.52). That role has Biblically and traditionally been reserved understands James Tyrone, but Mr. Davis plays him with a kind of rhetorical flourish, as though Tyrone himself were giving one of his stagey performances. He has some fine moments, notably the confrontation scene with Edmund, but, for the most part, Mr. Davi3 settles for theatricality rath-' er than truth.

The same may be said of Eon Leibman who is totally miscast and nearly always grating as Jaime. In his moustached sarcasm, he looks like an end-man for riverboat vaudeville and is guilty all night long over-playing. Despite the erraticism of performance, "Long Day's Journey" retains its power! The evening begins at 7:30 and closes at 11:50. I cad honestly say in all that time', even with some of the irrita tions noted above, I was never bored and I was frei quently moved. Stage West is off to a good start.

"LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT," play In four acts bx Eugene O'Neill, currently Is in fierlormance by Stage West, at he Eastern States Exposition grounds. West Springfield. Di rectccl by James Cromwell; set cy jumtn Hausan; lighting by Eonald W. Wallace. The cast: James Tyrone Donald Davli Mary C.

Tyrone Ruth Nelson James Tyrone, Eon Leibman Edmund Tyrone. Abeli Cathleen Janet Kapral Terence Stamp POOH C01T 536. 2870 WINNER OF ii ACADEMY AWARDS KATHARINE HEPBURN BEST ACTRESS feiiess who's fSf coming to dinner 536 2870 CHCRI 1,213 ARE LOCATED OPPOSITE THE SHERATON BOSTON HOTEL REDUCED RATE PARKING AFTER 5 P.M. ABOVE THE THEATRE COLORtytilsu 536-2870 HtMiTEIUI PAM AVtSIOK" COLOR bj Dalms 423-3300 I iLitsTsiiiT Tiri'w Iii70iiini.nad icfcriwkitlilllllP KllllllH Ii GOKEVITH I Carol I I White I I umc i 1. 1.

Al')f II 3300 1 111 268 TREMONT If Yr fi vtf" CHARLTON HESTON 4 mm 1 ipBpiii'ii mwpi 1 11 wisp mm 1 II I RE(1UIRED 11 Jf SOTDEXSIS KEIRDtUEA 1 Mim fUil i I Uil53 TREMONT h.isi.iii y' jwws Second Violin Concerto, which had fine solo playing from BSO concertmaster 1 Joseph Silverstein, taught the young players very little about new methods of look' ing music GBEATEH BOSTON YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTEA, Walter Eisenberg, conductor, Joseph Silverstein, violin soloist, performing Glinka's "Russian and Ludmilla" Overture: Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes of Web- miSh-masn Of profanities, Prokofiev's Second Violin Con- cnenHiec rt ,,,...1 THE PASSIONS OF UX-PORT, by Maxine Kumin; Harper Row, N.Y., 399 $6.95. This is the story of two families, or of two marriages in crisis. It is also the Boston version of Peyton Place, played in a suburb 18 miles west of Boston (guess!) called Uxport. It is a more sophisticated, more intellectualized Peyton Place but reeks with the same stink of decay. This stench some might call the mysterious, pervading Odor of Death over Life, and, following the scent throughout the book, enlarge it into some profound Allegory of Death and Life.

But to those who really understand life and death, death has no smell of decay: death is life. What is here in Uxport is only decay. If this is what Mrs. Kumin wants to say then she has said it: Uxport stinks of decay. She makes this point urgent and immediate by sprinkling it over with references to civil rights marches, to Martin Luther King, to an outspoken Jesuit poet (Daniel to riots in Roxbury.

But there are no new insights. Some will claim deep significance in the fact that the book begins with Death, the death on the highway of an Irish setter, and ends with Lne, the birth of a stud colt. But the fact that death and life are here embodied in animals suggests the animal level on which everybody in this book functions. Again, some readers might find great insights in this uuiiua- cuity and pre-marital nres- of fibortions today with Amara. Merrill, Corelli, Giaiotti and Corena, conducted by Molinarl-Pradelll.

Curtain down at 11:25. "WAITING FOR GODOT" Charles Playhouse at 8:30 p.m. Samuel Beckett's tragi-comedy about the human condition. With Danny Meehan. Will Hare, James Tol-kan, Edward Moorehouse and Jonathan Currier.

Directed by Arthur Storch. Through May E. 'YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN" Wilbur Theater at 8:30 p.m. The kids from the "Peanuts" comic strip. With Jim Ricketts, Minnie Gaster, Jonathan Hadary, Rena Frederics, Fat McKenna and Joel Kimmel.

National company, directed by Joseph Hardy. Through May at least. ccflTSflFSfliE miBus Tfiiint' Trtmnt PIMM 117-NU-tX LAST WEEK ENDS SAT. TONITE 8:30 HON. thrtj THURS.

8:30 P.M. SEATS NOW AT BOX OFF "AVERY FUNNY COMEDY" Jicli Cevtr, Unlua Prti, mn GEORGE GOBEL THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS PRKES: $SJS0, SjM, 4bS0, JiSO 'k w.v-.- jw, war mn iTi SV a. DO-IT-YOURSEIF MANICURE for an evil gunman is seen in "Lemonade Joe." It's a Czech spoof on American Westerns at the Brattle in Cambridge. Tickets earned a fortune as he steadily lost his soul. Raised in poverty, unable to still the image of his work-bent mother who feared death in the poorhouse, James Ty- rone, despite his wealth, is now a miser, and miserliness is his fatal flaw.

It has ruined his family. When his timid, loving wife Mary needed the serv-icts of doctor, he sent her to a auack. Since then Mary has been hopelessly addicted tO drugs, an addiction which allows her to wander in and out of the spiralling memories of her past: of the day she wanted to become a nun, of the time when she met and fell in love with James, of the accumulation of a lifetime of sorrows. Jaime and Edmund, too, have been warped by their BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAL ERICH LEINSDORF Music Director Final OPEN REHEARSAL 1967-68 Season APRIL 25, 7:30 Tickets $2.50 Symphony Hall Box Offlci CO 6-1492 COLUMBIA PICTURES presents feci SHOWN AT: ptiarlesoHu la intMMfia. aian OPENS 1145 t2: 20-2: 40-4 150 V'niiDisrsypre ExetWjStreet Theatre iWinnerof.AcadEmy Awards is new riciwe, ry Mat lirlJTW rivrsc? ddeci rv it "si STEVE MtOUCEN-ANN MARC RET "minus! ati irin" I 7 Original play The Hub Theater Center is presenting an original play, David Shumaker's "Pelican," at Old West Church, 131 Cambridge st, Boston, on Apr.

26-28 and May 3-5, all at 8:30 p.m. A story of alienation and love, the play is having its first local production. 3 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ERICH LEINSDORF Music Director TONIGHT at 8:30 WAGNER Tristan und Isolde-Prelude STRAU68 Also tprach Zarathustra Op. 30 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 In minor Op.

67 A limited number of tickets are available for this concert. Baldwin Clans RCA Viator Reeard 4 VCILRDeMILLES iiriorrnnirAr Siv.MoiLnncuc TECHNICOLOR stop MGM wwr STAN LEY KUBRICK PRODUCTION snd Metrocolor Mr Mm fy THE MARTHA GRAHAM FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY DANCE, INC. presents IMflTHA GRAHAM and DANCE C0MPAI1Y In A Limited New York Engagement GEORGE ABBOTT THEATRE 19 PERFORMANCES ONLY-MAY 24 through JUNE 9' For Advance fnformafion'and Preferential MARTHA GRAHAM FOUNDATION' FOR CONTEMPORARY DANCE, 316 East 63rd Street, New York, N. Y. 1002X certo; Evans' "Vedic Pronounce- and Respighi's "Pines of W.

Sunday night at Symphony Stage, music BOSTON SYMPHONY Symphony Hall at 8:30 p.m. Erich Leins-dorl conducting Wagner's "Tris- tan und Isolde" Prelude, Strauss' "Also' Sprach Zarathustra" and Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. CAPPELLA COLONIENSI8 Jordan Hall at 8:30 p.m. Ferdinand Leitner conducting the U.S.

debut of the Baroque orchestra Of the West German Radio, Handel's major Concerto Grosso, Mozart's A major Symphony, K. 201, Telemann's ma-iot Concerto, with Guenther Hoeller, recorder, and Hans-Martin Linde, transverse flute, and Bach's Suite No. 3. "THE GREAT FUGUE" Fenway Theater at. 8:30 p.m.

Theater Company of Boston premiere production of F. M. Kimball's comedy about hi-fi family. With Carolyn Coates, William Cottrell, Charles Siebert and Louise Shaffer. Directed by David Wheeler.

Through Sunday. "THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS" Shubert Theater at 8:30 p.m. The Bob Fisher-Arthur Marx comedy about a psychiatrist who has daughter trouble. With George Gobel. National touring company, here through Saturday.

"THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE" Colonial Theater at 8:30 p.m. Frank Marcus' comedy-drama about an old dyke who gets bounced from her B.B.C. opera sies. With Hermione Baddeley. Sylvia O'Brien, Patricia Sinnott and Polly Rnwles.

National company, here through Saturday. METROPOLITAN OPERA War Memorial Auditorium at 8 p.m. Verdi's "La Forza del 'Queen' Shelley at Music Hall As Kate, tarnished queen of various Western frontier parlor houses in "The Scalp-hunter," now at the Music Hall, Shelly Winters crowns a rotable screen success which has won her two Oscars rnd an Emmy. The new film stars Burt Lancaster. Miss Winters made ner movie debut in "Nine Girls" in 1944 and won Oscars for her portrayals in "A- Patch cf Blue" and "The Diary of Anne i FINAL TWO WEEKS Tonight at 8:30 SAMUEL BECKETT'S 'WAITING FOR GODOT" Tel.

Res. DE 8-S98i LI 2-8325 Remaining BOSTON BALLET TICKETS for Apr. 26 Apr. 27 BACK BAT THEATRE 8:30 At the Box OHIc CALL 267-7152 or B0ST0M BALLET-543 7G7I Caesi ArtlstK CARU FTUCCJ PEARL UKG B0YES FERNANDEZ Program) KS mPHIDES-fERSEPflOIIE GRAND PAS DEOEUX SYMPHONY IN Ma reel lo Mastroianni Si I Alley C1NCMA MO ComrmmweaHh Ave. H1tm 4 block from Kenm.

So. towa B.tt. SOc psrlcina after-5 p.m. Shown 1-4-6-H-W p.m. "2001 A Space is the world's most EXTRAORDINARY FILM!" MnHory Atlnms, Glnbe 1 TONIGHT at 8:30 j' TOM'W at 2:00 A 8:30 RESERVED SEAT TICKETS NOW AT I0X OFFICE OR BY MAIL HUM51J BOSTON HIDMIKM THiiH tl-t -t tilt asMneron Batfon 1 MM ii i ii I fi It II 11 THE WIMDT I LI 2-7040 131 STUART WINNER OF ACADEMY AWARDS 'I 2HTIWT I i ii I a.