Pick of the Summer

By T.E.Kalem

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day every year, some 5,000,000 visitors pour into Manhattan. An unknown number of these attend the theater, and another unknown number are asked as soon as they get back home: "What shows did you see?"

Quite a few will go to no shows at all, some by choice, others deterred by old wives' tales. One myth is that the show you would like to see is sold out. Not true. There are only two sellouts, No, No, Nanette and Sleuth, and even in these instances a last-minute check at the box office may net you tickets. Another myth has it that the streets around the theaters are bristling with danger. Nonsense. Every single night, thousands upon thousands of playgoers attend theaters on Broadway and down to off-off-Broadway's remotest reaches without being mugged. A far more realistic danger is that a show may have deteriorated badly since its glowing opening-night reviews. What with cast changes and the failure of producers or directors to maintain vigilant spot-checks, some shows are not remotely up to the mark. A glaring and appalling case in point is Hair, which is a lamentable travesty of what it once was. The performers are sloppy, inept and totally self-indulgent, and the amplification system is an auditory torture that the Nazis might have envied.

Herewith, listed alphabetically and with number of performances to date, the best values New York has to offer:

COMPANY (498). If a thing of beauty is a joy forever, Company is just such a joy. As the bachelor about town touring the troubled marriages of his old friends and sampling the dubious favors of swinging singles, Larry Kert is a delight, a marvelously expressive singer and actor. Jane Russell has replaced Elaine Stritch in a key role, and while Russell doesn't have the acerb singing voice of Stritch, neither did Stritch have the opulent good looks of Russell.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (2,844). On July 21, this endearing folkfest will replace Hello, Dolly! as the longest-running musical in Broadway history, and it eminently merits the honor. As Tevye, Paul Lipson is a warm, strong father figure, perplexed and bedeviled by his daughters and his God, but not about to be squelched by either.

FOLLIES (120). A work of art, rich, various, strange, hauntingly compelling. To float through time in the fragile, foolish bark of the self, and see life through the bifocal lenses of 20 and 50 simultaneously--that is the amazing achievement of this Proustian musical.

GODSPELL (72). A group of attractive, energetic and convivially winning youngsters bring the Jesus revolution to the New York theater. There is a sweet gravity behind all the funmaking; and while some may find the occasion irreverent, others will feel that the early followers of Christ must have shared some of this springtime zeal and ebullience.

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS (1,447). Without being present, Brel dominates this show. His music and personality are in the tradition of Piaf, Aznavour and Sinatra. His songs reach your ear, but his life reaches your heart. The quartet of performers invariably seem to be inspired by Brel, and some people have seen this show more than 30 times. A crystalline and incandescent evening.

LENNY (61). Lenny Bruce had his unappetizing characteristics, but taking sex and scatology as his texts, he hurled thunderbolts of laughter at moral and social hypocrisy, and enlarged the scope of freedom. In the title role, Cliff Gorman gives a Herculean performance.

LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (81). To see a splendid revival of the finest play ever written by a U.S. dramatist ought to be a sufficient lure, in and of itself. O'Neill painted an enduring portrait of his own tragic family history, using the primary colors of love, anger and compassion. As the mother, Geraldine Fitzgerald gives a performance that is etched in the bloodlines of life.

NO, NO, NANETTE (204). Long, long ago, it used to be said that good Americans went to Paris when they died. Nowadays they go to No, No, Nanette. It's a nice place to expire--with nostalgia, laughter and the ultimate in escapist foofaraw. One can only hope that they gild Ruby Keeler's shoes for the Hoofer's Hall of Fame and vote Patsy Kelly the Most Amusingly Insolent Maid of the Century. To Helen Gallagher, and Bobby Van, let's just say, "Thou swell."

OH! CALCUTTA! (974). Fig leaves are for figs as far as this show is concerned. It is as funny as oldtime burlesque, but far barer and much more chic.

PURLIE (562). Anyone who has ever been to an evangelistic revival meeting will instantly grasp the tempo, rhetoric and fervor of this show. When these people "rock church," they really rock church. Cleavon Little is a kinetic preacherman, and 22-year-old Patti Jo is as much of a superfind as her predecessor, Melba Moore, and equally beguiling.

SLEUTH (284). This is the kind of thoroughly satisfying mystery thriller that comes along about as rarely as total eclipses of the sun. It is British, literate, wildly funny, and spiced with an edgy, menacing duel of wits and wills. In the lead roles, Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter are smashingly good.

THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS (478). Cremation is not confined to the dead. There are families in which people burn each other to a crisp daily, and dance with desolate glee in the ashes. This is a masterly play about such a family. As the mother, Carolyn Coates is laceratingly cruel and pitiably vulnerable.

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