Arkady Leokum's Enemies (Broadway Theatre Archive) Review

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(More customer reviews)Enemies is a wonderful two character, one-act, 45 minute play from the Kultur Broadway Theatre Archives. The setting is a small restaurant in the Catskills, 1971. The two characters, well into their senior years have encountered one another for five years. Gittleman (Sam Jaffe) is a waiter who has to put up with the demanding, harsh and critical insults of customer Miller (Ned Glass), who makes his frequent visit, as he puts it, to eat before the riff raff comes in.
For five years, Miller criticizes the food, the hygiene, the coffee, the menu, the establishment and the final blow is to refer to Gittleman as a lowly waiter who Miller has had to train! Clearly Gittleman and Miller are not friends. Miller is a widowed man has merely enjoyed the pleasures of life that "discount hours" have brought him, clearly a lonely and less expensive existence. But he flaunts a different lifestyle filled with success and happiness. Gittleman is a hard-working family man.
It is the turn of events that makes this play a gem! The two veteran actors have starred in television and movies for years. Ned Glass is known also for his nasal voice while Sam Jaffe for his wild white hair. The two actors both died in 1984. Arkady Leokum is popular for his Tell Me Why: Answers to Hundreds of Questions Children Ask. If you care to see another great play by him, try Neighbors (Broadway Theatre Archive) ....Rizzo


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Arkady Leokum's short humorous play is based on theauthor's experience as a waiter at a Catskills resort. Sam Jaffe stas as a long-suffering waiter who finally turns the tables on an intolerable regular customer (Ned Glass).

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Zalmen or the Madness of God (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1975) Review

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(More customer reviews)Most familiar with the works of Elie Wiesel will think of his memorable semi-autobiographical novels, his two-volume memoir or his long and unflagging effort to bring the issue of human rights--not only Jewish human rights--before the eyes of the world. Here, we see a different Wiesel, even different than the man who stood up to Ronald Reagan when he urged him (unsuccessfully) not to visit Bitburg. it is not so much that his theme--the plight of oppressed Jews-- is unfamiliar. Rather, it is how it is revealed. Not only is it a play, and brilliantly cast, but, as some may remember from its appearance many years ago on PBS, it focuses us on post-World War II history, the struggle of Jews in freshly post-Stalinist Russia. Joseph Wiseman is the old Rabbi of the town who has nearly given up hope of ever seeing his people breath the brisk air of freedom, and, at the same time, grieving for his spiritually wayward daughter, while he and his neighbors and congregants alike cow-tow to the local officials who gently strong-arm them to behave and shut up. Richard Bauer, as the synagogue beadle, and crazy like a fox, tries to lift Wiseman out of his spiritual malaise and speak out. There is great humanity here, and--please--it is not just for a Jewish audience, much like, I would argue, is the case with most of the Wiesel canon. Watch this and be changed.

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Set in a post-Stalinist Russian synagogue on the eve of an appearance by a Western actring troupe, Elie Wiesel's play has been described as a cry of anguish about the collective guilt of"the Silent". Stars Dianne Wiest, Robert Prosky,Joseph Wiseman.

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The Typists (Broadway Theatre Archive) Review

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(More customer reviews)Saw this show years ago on TV when it was first shown. Enjoyed it then for its excellent performance by great actors. The story interesting as the characters age before your eyes throughout the show. Great actors, interesting script and a real jewel of a performance.

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Sea Marks (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1976) Review

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(More customer reviews)Colm Primrose, a fisherman from the wild coast of Ireland, loves his work, his boat, his fishing buddies, and the sea in all its moods. Living in a small, rural community, he has no telephone, no modern conveniences--and no wife. While at a local wedding, he sees Timothea, a young woman from Liverpool, to whom he eventually writes a letter. Their correspondence, in which he describes his life, continues for eighteen months, before she returns to the area for another wedding. Before long, she has persuaded him to visit her in Liverpool, where she works for a publisher.
Their relationship, the first ever for Colm, provides sweet romance, but the seeds of disaster are sown from the beginning, when Timothea has his letters published as "sonnets." Described by publicists as "primitive," the unschooled Colm finds himself, unexpectedly, a celebrity poet, in demand for talks to clubs. Like the proverbial fish out of water, however, Colm misses the sea and "the heads," while Timothea, who has escaped to Liverpool from rural Wales, wants never to live the primitive life again. Their love, which drives the first act of the play, becomes the conflict which drives the second act.
Gardner McKay has created a romantic drama which glorifies the life of the fisherman and his ties to the most basic elements of wind and weather. The visual contrast between the wild Irish coast in this filmed-for-television production and the seamy side of Liverpool illustrate the themes. The plot is simple--and predictable--but George Hearn manages to make Colm a real person experiencing real agonies as he tries to reconcile his first experience with love with his need to return to his roots. Veronica Castang, as the more experienced lover, plays her role with a lovely softness, which disguises her selfish side, seen in her refusal to consider leaving the city and her determination to persuade Colm to remain.
This Broadway Theatre Archive production from 1976, contains themes as relevant today as they were then--the desire for love, the need for openness to new experiences, and the beauties of the simple life vs. the city life. The attractions of a life as raw and primitive as Colm's may be less appealing today than they were in 1976, however, and the conflict is so basic that the conclusion is obvious from the beginning of the play. Still, Hearn makes Colm such an attractive character that one hopes that he will achieve happiness by finding both a lover and a continued life on the sea he loves. A well-acted romantic drama. n Mary Whipple


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Luigi Pirandello's The Rules of the Game (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1975) Review

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(More customer reviews)Pirandello's "The Rules of the Game," which has nothing to do with the Renoir film of the same title, is a relatively minor entry in the Pirandello canon but it's still an intriguing and effective play.
This TV production, originally presented on PBS's Theater in America series, was based on a stage production by the Phoenix Repertory Company that played on Broadway in 1974. (And how sad is it that it's been so long since PBS has had anything like the Theater in America series?)
The main characters are Silia (Joan van Ark), who is having a long-term affair with Guido (David Dukes), while remaining obsessed with her estranged husband, Leone (John McMartin) As part of their separation agreement (this being Italy and there being no possibility of divorce), Leone must visit Silia every evening for a half-hour.
Leone has decided that the best way to win what he refers to as "the game" is to drain himself of all painful emotions and to give in without argument to what others request of him. By continually agreeing to all of Silia's requests, including when she requested a separation, he frustrates her will, which is why she remains obsessed with him.
The play has a couple of plot twists that are fairly predictable, but what makes it a pleasure is Pirandello's language, which comes through effectively even in translation. (The William Murray translation is used.) And Pirandello provides dramatic situations that give good actors a lot to work with.
As Leone, John McMartin is particularly fascinating, finding ways to make Leone seem somewhat passive while subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) tormenting Silia and Guido. That fine actor David Dukes (who died far too young) provides an excellent foil for McMartin. They play their scenes beautifully.
Joan van Ark, who had been a late replacement for Mary Ure in the stage production, doesn't inhabit Silia's mix of sensuality, sadism, and neediness as fully as she might, but she's generally sound and sometimes more than that.
The supporting cast (including Charles Kimbrough, perhaps best known as Jim Dial on "Murphy Brown," in a fairly important supporting role, and Glenn Close, listed prominently on the DVD case, in a tiny role) is excellent, though it's a little strange that while most of the cast speak in more-or-less standard American stage speech, a couple seem to be trying to sound vaguely Italian.
The play was a cut a bit to fit into a 90-minute TV time slot, but the cutting was done skillfully. I question how McMartin was directed to play the final moments (going way beyond what is suggested in the script), but this DVD is an excellent way to experience this rarely seen Pirandello play. And except perhaps for those final moments, McMartin gives a superb and fascinating performance.

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This 1918 tragicomedy by Luigi Pirandello is set among the Italian upper class. The main characters are an impulsive young woman, the lover she exasperates and her cynical husband. The husband's apathetic attitude is that life is a game played by arbitrary rules, and his role is that of an unemotional observer. His philosophy is severely put to the test when his wife draws him into a duel with a nobleman who drunkenly accosted her. Stars Joan Van Ark (Dallas)and Emmy-nominee David Dukes (The Josephine Baker Story). Also featuring a brief appearance by Glenn Close in an early role.

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John Cheever's The Sorrows of Gin (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1979) Review

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(More customer reviews)With an eye for details and an ear for the hollow speech of the upper-middle-class residents of Shady Hill, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein transforms John Cheever's famous short story into a realistic play about the failure to connect. Set primarily inside a suburban home, the play focuses on the lives of the Lawton family--Kip (Edward Herrmann) and Marcia (Sigourney Weaver), for whom the social whirl of cocktail parties and evening martinis has completely subsumed real life, and eight-year-old Amy (Mara Hobel), sad, lonely, and often fobbed off on the household help. The acting is outstanding, with an amazing performance by young Mara Hobel.
Although the Lawtons' household employees come and go, Amy becomes particularly fond of Rosemary, a cook who is as lonely as she is and who reads to her and gives her affection. When Rosemary returns one evening from a trip to the city, drunk, she is instantly fired, in part because she has embarrassed Amy's father in public. Amy, devastated, decides to follow a suggestion Rosemary once made to her--she pours her father's gin down the sink. When Amy continues this practice, her parents assume that the help is stealing it, and they fire a succession of employees. After her father's hot-headed confrontation with a babysitter, Amy decides to run away.
Produced for Public Television in 1979, this Jack Hofsiss-directed play depicts every aspect of the Lawtons' shallow lives. Amy's imitations of her parents' speech and their alcohol-related entertaining are duplicated when she plays with her dolls, and her mother's concern with appearances and her father's constant escape into martinis show the emptiness of their lives and the effects on Amy. Unfortunately, while this realistically depicted subject may have been fresh in the late 1970s, when the story was written, it is now stale and offers little that is new, thematically. The Lawtons are not intrinsically interesting, and their interactions with their daughter, such as they are, do not develop any real dramatic tension.
The intricacy and satire of Cheever's short story are missing here, and the pacing and careful buildup of details, which enhance the themes of Cheever's short story and leave something to the imagination, are sacrificed--everything in the play is obvious from the outset. The good acting, Wasserstein's natural-sounding dialogue, and the accuracy of the sets and costuming do not compensate for the losses that occur when this carefully constructed short story is transferred from the reader's imagination to an in-your-face revelation of family problems by people who do not learn from their experiences. Mary Whipple


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Sigourney Weaver and Edward Herrmann portray an affluent suburban couple whose empty and gin-fueled lives are observed through the eyes of their neglected, eight-year-old daughter in a teleplay adapted by playwright Wendy Wasserstein from John Cheever's short story. The tension and sadness behind the veneer of upper-class life in Shady Hill are at the heart of this insightful drama.

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Neighbors (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1971) Review

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(More customer reviews)Many may know the author, Arkady Leokum, as one who writes "Tel Me Why" childrens' books. As a playwright, Leukom has written the humorous short play "Enemies".
"Neighbors" is mostly one-on-one dialogue which doesn't entail any grand or lengthy monologues. The 70s performance is a television cast with veteran actor Andrew Duggan, Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best), actress Cicely Tyson and Raymond St. Jacques (Roots). The scene takes place in the living room of a nice suburban New York home.
A well-to-do elderly white couple, Chuck and Mary, prepare for a visit to their home from prospective buyers, a young, also well-to-do, black couple, Bill and Vicky, from Harlem. Bill and Vicky's reason for buying into a "lily-white" neighborhood is for the schools, to buy their children an education. That's it!
Owners Chuck and Mary Robinson are stay-at-homes who thrive on community social involvement and indirectly, they lead the black couple to believe that involvement and responsibility to the community is the "thing" to do.
On the other hand, perspective buyer, Bill, a salesman, is a world traveler, and not home much, and he is confident with himself. Vicky is a Soul Sister who does for herself, has a maid, gets her nails and hair done, shops, and is strictly into being a w-o-m-a-n for her man. Bill and Vicky have absolutely no interest in community involvement.

The action begins after looking around the home and chatting about themselves. The sale is made and things get crazy when the black couple assumes that the white couple suggests "they behave like whites and get involved in the community"!
This short play is great! ....Rizzo


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A provocative, emotion-packed drama about race relations in an all-white suburban community, this play depicts the confrontaion between an upper-class white couple and a black couple from Harlem who plan to buy their expensive suburban home. In negotiating the sale, all four parties learn a little more about each other...and a lot about their own latent prejudices. A stellar cast - including Oscar-nominee and 2-time Emmy-winner Cicely Tyson (Sounder), 3-time Emmy-winner Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best), Andrew Duggan (Rich Man, Poor Man), and Raymond St. Jacques (Roots) - delivers outstanding performances. By Arkady Leokum.

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