Newsday from New York, New York • 93

in front of their faces spoke to us of a yearning for approval, of a blurring of self and the image we try to project (Who am I anyway, am I my To be sure, the artistry is impressive, even if every element is not on the same high level. The comforting thought well take from Saturdays closing performance at the Shubert is that, unlike life offstage, the theater holds out the shining hope of revival. The Critics Views: Sizing Up The Sensation Continued aimed most directly at the hearts of dancers. It became more universal when it opened to a wildly enthusiastic Broadway audience later that year. It was a cause for celebration watching current and former cast members in the record-breaking performance in 1983.

And an occasion for sorrow on the day in 1987 when Michael Bennett died. For me, and Im sure many others, "A Chorus Line transcends artistry; we kept coming back, because it touched so many chords in ourselves. The montage Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love summoned up a tangle of submerged feelings. The moment when the dancers hold their glossies LINDA WINER Unlike most people, I always admired A Chorus Line more for its brains than its heart. From the first time I saw it at the Public, I was both dazzled and repelled by the quality of the manipulation.

As a dance and theater person, I knew I was exactly the audience meant to be most deeply touched by the Use me, choose me poignance behind the Give me that I love to dance smile faces. Instead, I found it a tough little backstage soaper, a seamless wonder of an applause machine, brilliantly structured, choreographed and calculated to leave its fingerprints all over our thumping hearts. To do so, it dissolves from one stage-struck cliche to another, one top-hat psychodrama to the next. Somehow, mawkish is supposed to be okay if the mirrors swivel. TriteB terrific, if somebody taps.

From the Public to Broadway, from the Chicago company to countless cast changes and the historic record-breaking performance, my respect for Michael Bennetts stagecraft has only grown deeper. Ive also realized the importance of Edward Klebana A little reminder from the Environmental Defense Fluid that The Show Continued that Broadway was dead, says Jacobs. Chorus Line, says Papp, sort of gave people hope. It was one of those things that made peoples eyes light up. Broadway has a hit! And its not just a hit, its a hit about the theater.

So it really gave everybody a wonderful jolt. The jolt was considerable. In the 1975-76 season, when the musical stormed uptown winning nine Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious awards total Broadway attendance jumped to 7.3 million from the previous seasons 6.6 million, according to Harvey Sabinson, executive director of the League of American Theaters and Producers. For the Shakespeare Festival, the show provided us funds to continue staying open, Papp says. By the time the Broadway production doses, the musical will have netted the organization more than $38.4 million, the lions share of approximately $50 million in profits.

Except for a few Shakespeare Festival programs such as the Festival Latino, Papp says, Sure didnt really enlarge the work that much. But without a $20-million endowment that came mostly from Chorus Line profits, he adds, I would kill myself trying to raise money all the time." Nevertheless, attendance at the Shubert began falling off several years ago, leaving the Shakespeare Festival with a $2. 5-million deficit. For Papp, that means more fund-raising. Although A Chorus Line has had a measurable effect on business, uptown and downtown, its artistic impact seems to have been ephemeral.

Only for a few years was the influence of its free-form structure discernible in a handful of musicals, induding Runaways, "Working and Nine. I think, Papp says, it seems to be of its own kind. These days, such spectacles as Cats, Lea Miserables and Phantom of the Opera are more likely to be cloned than the intimacy and confessional tone of A Chorus line. And Jacobs, a dose friend of Bennetts (who died in 1987), says, Michael was the only one to really develop the workshop concept the way he did. I think lots of people-have tried to do it since, and I dont think that anybody has been successful at it.

Where the show will continue to live is not through imitations but in other Chorus Line productions, both in the United States and abroad. There have been national companies, bue-and-truck tours and performances in 22 other countries, and Papp says the Broadway closing wont hinder new productions. He expects a production to be mounted in the Soviet Union sooner or later and wouldnt be surprised to see a revival on Broadway in a few years. That Linell never end, he predicts. II if youre not recycling, youre throwing away a lot more than just your trash.

You and your community can recycle. Write the Environmental Defense Fund at- EDF-Recyding, 257 Park Araiue South, New York, NY 10010, fora free brochure that will tell you virtually everything you need to know about recycling. On the Line Continued one that is likely to raise the HnnAw of the Chorus Line family. After all, the question baldly reflects the American mania for success, which, as Priscilla Lopez, the original Diana Morales, recently pointed out, basically means, If you arent a star, youre nobody. Indeed, it was just this skewed vision of success that A Chorus line aimed to remedy with its central theme that everyone even the lowliest gypsy was special.

That message touched audiences all over the world who could relate to the quiet heroism onstage. It is one of the paradoxes of the phenomenon that no sooner did the hot lights of fame and riches shine on the cast than the idealism of the company ated into what Pamela Blair (t-and-a Val) called a snakepit of backbiting and bitchery. The backstage machinations, particularly of the director Michael Bennett, have been documented in four books that have recently been published about or at least touch on A Chorus Line. But many of the original cast members note that their feelings about the Chorus Line experience have evolved over time. As the show nears its dose, the dominant emotion about this glittering milestone in their lives is philosophical and wistful.

It was a weird experience, says Blair, who now lives in California and works in TV. On one hand, we were lab rats referring to the workshop process that developed the show, and then suddenly we were stars. I mean youd walk into Sardis, and thered be SMB 20PART II NY newsday, Sunday, april 22, 1900.