The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 30

4k 30 The Boston Globe Tuesday, January 16, 1973 THEATERARTS Susan Batson relives her part in 'Creation of the World' and adds that she thinks "The Creation of the World and Other Business" is a very important play, despite its failure, because "it addresses itself to the choices we have as human beings interacting with each other." phenomenon;" and Barbara Harris has made no comment, is known only to be "decorating her apartment." Miss Batson. the youngest, most vulnerable of fhem all, places the treatment accorded her in the perspective of morality tion, and I was a no-one with a loose contract. But I really 'think what happened to me would never have happened to a white actress. We do live in a racist society, let's start there. A lot of so-called liberal intellectuals don't speak their prejudices but h1 Nu( play I said okay and said I'd leave, and then they told me I was committed for Washington, that I had to go on, and would I be one's stand-by? I don't know how I took it! Miller said that everyone loved me but that, now, he needed a maturity for Eve, the maturity of a Zoe Caldwll, and, really, that he had written the role for her, specifically for the individual sound of her voice.

I was so violated I then violated myself. And to protect me, and the Equity rules and stuff I played the play. I had to do it for however long it took Zoe to lose the fat She was on the Drinking Man's Diet and jogging and I never knew it could be done so fast but she dropped the weight." Miss Batson let out a long, murmurous sigh. "The point is, you see, they could have fired me anytime. It was, after all, their play, their produc- If Marque par excellence in an atmosphere of restrained grandeur.

they have them. When Miller and Whitehead hired me I was a black novelty. When I hit the stage, I disturbed Miller's idea of the play and so, eventually, he had to come up with an excuse to fit me, like the sound of Zoe's voice. So I became a $1100-a-week baby-sitter until she got her nerves together. Yet all through it I couldn't adjust my fantasy about Miller." Susan Batson has thought about giving up her career in the theater but knows that she won't.

Hal Holbrook left the cast of Miller's play in Washington in a mood of cynical acrimony; Harold Clurman refers to his experience cautiously as a "theatrical THEATERS THE COPLEY PLAZA COPLEY SQUARE. BOSTON, MASS. 02116 TEL. (617) 267-5300 A SHERATON OPERATED HOTEL A WORLDWIDE SERVICE OF Til Cleveland Circle, Lawrence, Dedham, Nepontet, Revere, VFW Parkway Natick (9 Mm ii in ii iiKinninMiiiiiiiiniaiJirf'" rV-Tirnn well, black actresses were apt to lack femininity on stage. I took it.

I mean, here she was, a harmless Australian who perhaps did not even recognize she was being racist. But, anyway, by the time we got to Washington, I was becoming nervous, not on stage but off. I still only had a stand-by contract. I began to work with the new director, Gerald Friedman, whom I'd worked with in And, with his help, I kept stretching and stretching myself in the role. Oh I loved it," she said softly and closed her eyes, as if in momentary grief.

'Well, just before a matinee preview in Washington, Whitehead comes to me and asks me how old I am, which is one thing I tell no one. I told him, day, month, year, and he said, 'Susan, you are a great talent. Susan, you have a lot of time left for your career. Susan, Zoe is going to -DYNAMITE AS A A. Times THE GETAWAY pg DIRECTED BY SAM PECKINPAH SUBURBAN 20.7 35.9 55.

st tit cm shut nHM wk htmii cmstmji mi use iw Ktiuini Mil Mnwc ir mint ITrfE POSEIDON AOVfflTURE pg I Wt OP tHJ MO TWW.LWG MJMCIIOMI Of 'Kf 1 Wl U0VS TMfJ Tin lW Mnam-TlffW cwnwom snwwacs taiiwia men hii CLYDI AND IHANK SINATRA I L'C DFilfl CB-TDE the DtncnvE i BURT REYNOLDS ii SHOWN ST 100. 3 10. 5 i nmfscnw kh camNmnuini I Mi I MacG MrtJUUEN THE GETAWAY fc MacGIWV ONE OF THE YEARS luKiit- J40 10 00 10 BEST!" mm SMILES TO FROWNS might have been the title of Susan Batson's experiences in Arthur Miller's "The Creation of the World and Other Business." li.JrJkUiJLJiu.waPiy Arthur Miller's "The Creation of the World and Other Business" had a troublesome pre-Broad-way tryout here at the Colonial, further trouble in Washington, then it opoened in New York and closed after only 20 per-. formances. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, at least as far as relates to a struggling voung black actress badly bruised in the process, is, KEVIN KELLY in many ways, more fascinating than the play itself which, prophetically for those involved, is a treatment of what is meant by morality.

According to Susan Batson, who succeeded Barbara Harris in the central role of Eve only to find herself, in turn, succeeded by producer Robert Whitehead's wife, there was no morality to be seen backstage at alL Miss Batson, small, exquisite, extremely articulate, sat in a booth at Au Beauchamps, forgetting all about lunch, occasionally shuddering as she recounted the October-November holocaust of her 'horror-show" involve-rnent with 'The Creation pf the World." A graduate of Emerson ('64) and Girls Latin School, she comes from Roxbury. Her father died a year ago. Her family includes her mother, Mrs. Ruth Batson, an asso-fciate professor and a director at the B.U. Medical Center, and two sisters.

After Emerson Miss Batson pursued a career in the theater, won a John Hay Whitney fellowship; did Hair" in its first version; worked Off-Broadway; worked in Los Angeles; won the L.A. Drama Critics Award for performance in Shaw's "Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God;" did TV; played the title in "Antigone;" Anita jh "West Side Story;" appeared in "The Threepenny Opera" in Baltimore; did several plays for Joe Tapp; won a 1970 Obie for her performance in "ACDC." She was brought into the Miller 'play by its first director, Harold had worked with her in California. i "What held me together 'The Creation of the jWorld' began falling apart," Miss Batson said, "was my belief that I was with the high-jminded best in Arthur Miller and 'Robert Whitehead. I re garded Miller, at least, as a moral man. I just knew they'd never do me wrong.

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There was some trouble with the script but my reviews were fine. Miller and Whitehead implied that I would play Eve in New York. I tried to get that agreement stated in my contract, but they were busy, there were other hassles and, of course, I was tricked. Tricked, I guess by my own hesitancy and by my trust in the people I was working for. "Then Clurman quit.

We had no director for awhile. Suddenly there appears in Boston Whitehead's wife. Zoe Caldwell, the Australian actress. She had come to help me with my part, so she said, and I must 1 5th Sreit Weak MARJOE ii 30. 3:05, 9:450." EXETERSTREETTHEATRE KEnmore 6 7067 mm MffROCOLOR 11:30 1:30 3:30 5:30 7:30 9:30 "A genuine firecracker of a movie tuneful, inspiring, brimming over with spirit and wit" Award Winning Musical Is On The Screens Children uneer 12.

1 1 at jit peHormj nces 2 00.4 40 7 10 40 m. I rl cmema 11 GOV tCE1TR(T TO THE TWO ENGLISH GIRLS Shown at Stolen Kisses 7:30 M. ft THE I H7H admit she was helpful. There were rumors about her playing Eve, but I took one look at her and knew they were false. She had just had a baby.

She weighed like 175 pounds and when you're 5 ft. one and 175, honey, you're big! Eve was played to look nude, in a flesh body-stocking, and I knew the lady would never get into one. "Zoe liked my performance, but she came up with an insidious criticism that I was to hear later again and again. She began to make steady references to my so-called 'black gestures', and explained that black women had for so long been the brawn of their men that, SEATS NOW AT BOX OFFICE a rcu! wustcaG cemdij a TTt lumtcmrrm trrucneM oPEns jnn. 23- 3wt.kony Mm tN INiri Ep O'er! J9 lit Wc II 50.

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