Who's Afraid of David Golightly?

When David Merrick proclaimed a few months ago that the 1966-67 Broadway season would be another "Year of Merrick," he was just doing some good-natured hopeful crowing. By last week, with the season only two months old, the crowing was silenced and the voice of the turkey was heard in the land.

On paper, Merrick had a sure-shot production list: 1) The Loves of Cass McGuire, an Irish import by Playwright Brian Friel, author of the successful Philadelphia, Here I Come!; 2) We Have Always Lived in the Castle, an adaptation of Novelist Shirley Jackson's psycho-thriller; 3) I Do! I Do!, a musical version of The Fourposter, starring Mary Martin and Robert Preston;

4) Don't Drink the Water, an original farce by Funnyman Woody Allen; and

5) Holly Golightly, a musical adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Doctored Script. But, as Merrick says, "Disaster always lurks around the corner in this business." And right off, disaster struck. Cass closed after 20 performances and lost $75,000. Castle crumbled after nine performances and dropped $80,000. Don't Drink almost drowned during out-of-town tryouts, required a change of directors and numerous cast switches. A fortnight late, it opened last week in Manhattan to reviews that were less than rhapsodic (see THEATER).

There has been no unanimous rhapsodizing, either, over / Do! and Holly, which last week were trying to get in shape for Broadway. The drawing power of / Do!'s two-man cast was sufficient to sell out in Boston and Washington, but Director Gower Champion was still dissatisfied with the show and detoured his company to Cincinnati for repairs. Variety's reviewer found the musical "transparent" and "flimsy," decided that it was more a concert performance than a show. So far, 30 pages of script have been doctored, four songs have been added and two dumped, but listeners have yet to spot a genuine hit tune. What they have surely spotted, though, are some sorry lyrics: "There's a strange new world that you enter when you say 'I do, I do' Such a strange new world that you hardly can believe it's true, it's true." Just to add a little zip beyond cuing each other for songs, Martin and Preston have added a new bit of business: she plays a fiddle and he toots a saxophone in one number. The show is supposed to open on Broadway Dec. 5, three weeks behind schedule.

Holly's difficulties are still farther from solution. Right off, Writers Nunnally Johnson and Sidney Michaels failed to get a-fix on the heroine--played by Mary Tyler Moore (of TV's Dick Van Dyke Show)--so Director Abe Burrows (Cactus Flower) tried a re-adaptation. In Philadelphia, Holly came off as a tough $50-a-shot hooker instead of a sweet $50-a-shot hooker. By the time the show reached Boston, Holly had become a nice young thing who might just shack up with anybody for nothing. Worse, Michael Kidd's choreography was more kitsch than kick, while the songs of Bob Merrill scarcely topped the success of his 1953 hit, Doggie in the Window. Holly, wrote Boston Globe Critic Kevin Kelly, was "a multiset disaster, a straightforward musical flop."

Friendly Interest. Determined to un-flop it, Merrick last week hired Playwright Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) to re-readapt Holly, and changed the title back to Breakfast at Tiffany's. Albee, who has never written a musical, or a successful adaptation, for that matter, charged up to Boston to watch several performances and then went to work. "I'll probably rewrite it completely," he said, "not because it's so terribly bad, but because I have another approach--closer to Capote's original." Observed Capote (who had declined the assignment himself, explaining, "I just don't function well in team sports"): "I think it's very interesting. Albee is a friend of mine. I'm curious to see what he'll do. He's got a very interesting mind."

Whether or not / Do! and Tiffany's are finally judged critical hits, both have box-office insurance, thanks largely to Merrick's ability to sell tickets through marquee names. The producer claims $1,500,000 in advance sales for each. "Good or bad," explains Albee, "people go to musicals."

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