Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 143

Tynan Planning 'Elegant Second of Two Articles By Leo Seligsohn Besides the sleazy strip joints that dot the world and a few high-priced exotic chibs such as The Crasy Horse in Paris (the hQl for two can be expected to come to something like $100) where can a fellow take his girl these days to see a good erotic show? Possibly this been worrying you lately but If been on Kenneth Tynan's mind for quite a while and has led him to devise a revue called to fill the need The show-which starts previews on May 11 Day) at newly renamed Eden Theater is billed as an evening of "elegant erotica TVnan is a tall BnglMirMw with a slight stutter that has never prevented him from saying what is on his mind A former theater critic for the London Observer and the New Yorker and now the Observer's roving arts columnist as well as literary manager of England's National Theater most celebrated shocker in recent years occurred in 1966 when during a censorship discussion over the BBC he injected the four-letter Anglo-Saxon word for fornication into the air waves The explosion was heard around the world The Other Side of Footlights The former critic 42 this month is now on the other side of the footlights end in view of his past skirmishes with middle-class morality there is a great deal of speculation about what up to thle time The curiosity has been heightened by the recent liberalization of sex in the theater which has seen actors and actresses shedding their clothes faster than you can say "how shocking" or boring" as the case may be and which more recently saw an all but clinically complete portrayal of sexual intercourse as well as a potpourri of perversions at off-off-Broad "Che!" (now dosed down) The details of Calcutta" are being kept under wraps and only the preview will reveal to what extent the actors and actresses are The official opening is set for the week of May 26 In the East Side apartment of the producer Hillard WMtw Tynan is sitting at the edge of a large upholstered (hair balancing a cup of coffee in his hand and talking rapidly and earnestly Unlike the assured urbane glitter' of his prose Tynan's manner seems a little unsure and nervous Perhaps it is because the pressure of rushing to New York to help put the show together before flying back to London to resume work with the British National Theater where as Tynan put it he is Laurence Olivier's sidekick "I play Gabby Hayes to his Roy Rogers" he says There is nothing lighthearted or frivolous in Tynan's attitude toward Calcutta" Rather he speaks with the level-headed zeal of a vicar bent on social reform once in a while you see a gap in the theater" he Kenneth Tynan: Tlie Thinking Voyeur' says saw a gap in the portrayal of civilized sexual whihitinn I mean sleazy sex or crusading sex I mean a bill that would fill a legitimate need" Tynan who wlh Mmarff "the Clinking voyeur" lamewta that voyeurism today has become a matter of extremes that there is no place where a fellow and his date can go for an evening of quality voyeurist entertainment He cites cheap strip joints on the one hand and very high-priced special dubs like The Crazy Horse as two poles between which -nothing exists think Oh will do for us what the Restoration sex comedies did for the late 17th century simply put sex onstage and comment on it Of course clergymen have always complained but I think every period has a need to interpret its own sex mores on the stage" In this sense Tynan says Calcutta" will not be about marriage courtship or divorce about sex relating to the style and all matters that have to do with that theme This is a show for voyeurs but then all theater is voyeuristic" However Tynan is opposed to using the approach to voyeurism on personal rather than moral grounds seen Che! hut that kind of thing wouldn't attract me If the girl were attractive to me Fd be jealous And if not I'd be bored But my feeling is that as long as the audience is not coerced into attending a performance anything an actor or actress does on stags is okay I think any responsible producer of course would exert his own audience censorship forbidding the attendance for example of youngsters" Against Audience Besides intercourse Calcutta" will also pass up two other avant-garde innovations: homosexuality and audience involvement Regarding the Tynan says been enough of that around" As far the latter is concerned he says he is against the Living Theater idea of involving the customers believe in the living spectator and the way things are going I think we may someday see the death of the spectator At that point I will absent myself from the theater" As for fears that a voyeuristic erotica show like Calcutta" may be accelerating a timid toward what acme see as decadence Tynan has a swift reply think of decadent as anything that presents a falsely flattering view of itself I think much of what is seen on Broadway and in Londaon today is decadent Urn glossy presentation is decadent If you can present an accurate and candid picture of something then an artist" It was in (act Tynan's disenchantment with Broadway that led to his leaving the New Yorker in I960 felt that Broadway was a dwindling horizon not a horizon that an adult man would want to spend his life scanning" Calcutta" with a cast of five men and five women (none of them big names) is being directed by Jacques Levy It has been assembled from material contributed by more than 20 widely known writers Including Samuel Beckett Tennessee Williams Bruce Jay Friedman John Lennon Roman Polanski Gore Vidal and Jules Fieffer Tynan has also contributed but there will be no way to tell who wrote what The show is being produced at a cost of $100000 a record for off-Broadway have no money in Tynan says fact I have no money There never was a critic who died rich unless he was born rich" 2 LI Priests Set Stage For First Story on Page 44A Ntewifey Photo by Dkk Knui Every Once in a WhJe You Sec a Gap in the Theater' 48 A Newsday.