sign in sign up
<<
Home , Charles Gordone, Ethel Ayler, Gene Frankel, Roscoe Lee Browne, The Balcony, The Blacks (play)

~OO®WOO~~~ You'll feel better about smoking with the taste of Kent!

f r

Kent's famous "Micronite" Filter is made of pure all-vegetable filter fibers by Kent's "Jet-Blooming" CllUSH >'llOOf ao.:

Kent has become the favorite of millions, with the richest, finest-qualrty tobaccos and the famous "Micronite" Filter. An important step in making the "Micronite" Filter is Kent's "Jet-Blooming" Process. Specially designed machines separate the soft fluffy material into individual fibers ... then compress the fibers into the familiar filter shape, in an intricate network of tiny channels which refine smoking flavor. The result is the famous "Micronite" Filter-with a free and easy ALL THESE FIBERS ARE draw that brings through the true tobacco taste from Kent's blend of COMPRESSED INTO THE FIL TERI the world's finest tobaccos. That's why you'll feel better about smok• ing, with the taste of Kent, ~ A PRODUCT OF P. LORILLARD COMPANY • FIRST WITH THE FINEST CIGARETTES • THROUGH LORILLARD RESEARCH @1961 P. Lorillard Co. I 2 SHOWS/LL sliding realities, due no doubt to their in• ~;·aincd, or h.ibitual, sense of dualism in our culture that I mentioned earlier. ln this respect, it's interesting to note that the London production has reportedly run in to considerable difficulty in finding a suitable cast among British Negroes. To this picture of sliding realities, we must acld further lines of departure, or points of view, in Genet's cubistic - for want of another word-drama. In keep• ing with either the letter or spirit of his work, 1 have exploited the use of masks, music and choreography and audience p:1rticipation, among other devices. But I hasten to acid that none of these ele• ments has been willfully grafted on as an extraneous source of excitement. Rather have l tried to direct them all to the dra• matic point, as rivers might be led to con• verge in to a single swelling force. That "total theatre" concepts, aside from our musical comedies, still mark a radical departure from the na iuralism that we are most accustomed to is in my view unfortunate. It is in a new direction that I feel the theatre must go if it is to sound back to today's audience the deeper evocations or echoes of its own sensibility. A new trend demands in a sense a return to the reli• gious ritualistic theatre of the Greeks, or to the more active and intimate frank the• atre of the Elizabethans. Yet, it must still be wholly modern ancl entirely our own in that it must cull its substance from the contemporary conscience of our culture. Genet has provided a vehicle that, at least in my mind, demands the kind of "total theatre" that I have always strived [or. It has, as you may perceive, been a compelling challenge for me to try to meet him on his own ground. I trust the audi• ence will agree with me, regardless of the extent of my success or failure as the di· rector of T lie B lochs, that the "ground" Genet stands on is an eminence from which we may survey a vast plain of mean• ingfol reality plus.

JUNE 15 ~-··<~::. I / !} I ; I

BEACH and TRAVEL ATOMIZER WHITE SHOULDERS or MOST PRECIOUS The ideal travel companion ... in non-spill, unbreakable plastic spray container,

2. 75 plus tax 's The Blacl{_s

1 / Bernard Fveclitman

\\'hen The Blacks was presented in white could participate o profoundly in I in 1959, it was hailed as a landmark their negritude, referred to him, in their I I in the history of the theatre. In Holland, puvzlement, as a "white Negro." That was I where the first foreign production took their way of resisting the spell in which place in February of this year, a critic de• they too were caught, for Genet, who is clared that "it is LO the modern theatre merciless in his castigation of the whites, what Picasso's Gueruica is to modern is without sentimentality in his contem• p.unt.ing." \'\'bat is The Blacks? pla tion of the victims. He sees the op• pressed as future oppressors, fated to take The Blacks is an exercise in black magic. over the role of master in the endless play It undertakes, from the moment the cur• of shifting power. tain is drawn, to provoke the spectator's uneasiness, to disorient him. It appears at "One evening," says the author, "an ac• first lo be a play within a play ... within tor asked me to write a play for an all• a pht) ... within ... But this appearance black cast. But what exactly is a black? pron:s illusory. The straight line ceases to First of all, what's his color?" We are progress, changes direction, then abrupt• warned at once that we are entering the ly rises LO another level. An increasingly ambiguous. Ancl the more deeply we pene• complex figure is elaborated before the trate, the greater our unsureness, for t.he spectator's eyes. But, though it is com• ambiguity is radical. Never are we certain plex, it is not esoteric. Viewed from the of what we sec and hear. \\'hen are the proper point, everything falls into order, persons on the stage playing and when are and a rigorous, almost geometric structure they not? \Vhen do they speak the truth stands before us. Nothing in The Blacks and when do they lie? Is their lyricism a is gra Lui tous or private. spomaneous outpouring, or are they mere• Jean Genet, the maker of the music, is ly opening ancl closing a faucet at wil l• a white man. The all-Negro cast that per• \\'e are ba'.T;ed and thwarted. We arc formed the play in Paris, amazed that a cruelly mocked. \Ve are made to squirm.

SHOWBILL is published monthly by Newcastle Publications, lnc., 636 11th Ave., New York 36, N. Y. © 1961 by Newcastle Publications, Inc. All rights reserved under Universal and Pan-American Conven• tions. Reproduction without permission of any material contained herein is prohibited. Peter Bogdanovich, editor of program section. JUNE 3 ------~ --·------FOR THAT FEELING OF UTTER LUXURY Start your day or evening with a bath that leaves your skin soft and sweetly scented. A few drops in your tub or on your skin perfume your bath - and you - with a fresh and heartlifting fragrance that clings for hours with sweet persistence.

~etm~ff& Jhcm~

4 SHOWS ILL The Blacks is the logical progression in the destruction of the naturalistic theatre that Genet began in and car• ried forward in . His deepest purpose as a dramatist becomes fully ap• parent in the work to be presented this month: to return to the origins of the the• atre. lf he brusquely dismisses, as he does, the drama that has dominated the western stage for almost a century, it is because he is convinced that noble theatre is theatri• cal. Man is the theatrical animal, and his theatricality explains his greatness and folly. This theatricality, which is false• ness, is the subject of all Genet's plays, and he is utterly serious in calling so meaning• ful a work as The Blacks "a clown show." The Maids, The Balcony and The Blacks are steps in a progression aimed at re-es• tablishing a modern form of the theatre of ritual. Genet is endeavoring to create a theatre which is a ceremony. In The Maids and The Balcony, ceremony is achieved through the behavior of the char• acters, who enact a ritual. However, this is not achieved simply and directly, but through a dramatic irony peculiar to a sensibility that is both archaic and mod• ern. Genet seems to be writing a play, he seems to be presenting an action. For more than two hours we watch the magician moving his objects about the stage, ad• dressing us now solemnly, now sardonical• ly. And at the end, when the elaborate structure appears to be completed, we dis• cover that there has been no plot at all, that the magician has been diverting our attention in order to impose upon us the true action, the ceremony itself, which is a lyrical and symbolic murder of the op• pressor. 'Vho is the oppressor? Is it the white race? Those who see in the play only a gesture of hatred-which is indeed there• have stopped mid-way. They must push further. If they do, they will be rewarded, not only by an aesthetic vision of extra• ordinary richness and complexity, but by a sovereign meditation on the nature of power.

JUNE MARTEX®

SOMETHING OLD

SOMETHING NEW

SOMETHING BORROWED

SOMETHING MARTEX

... SHE CAN'T GET MARRIED WITHOUT MARTEX !

6 SHOWBILL ''The Blacks"

/

(Gene Fvank el , director of such off-Broad• physics. The reasons for this "lag" are way dramas as Machinal, Volpone, which worth pondering; but more to the point is won him several off-Broadway awards, and the fact that abstract or non-representa• An Enemy of the People, is the director of tiona 1 theatre is finally challenging us with [ean Genet's The Blacks which opened at full force. In short, it is demanding its the SI. Marks Playhouse May 4th.) day and must be reckoned with on its own terms. I dwell on this because all during the ~ot long ago a friend who heard I was production of The Blacks I was nagged by directing Jean Genet's The Blacks stopped the fear - and still am - that the tremen• me on the street. "Listen," he demanded, dous complexity of the drama may seem "why do you have to get mixed up with perverse to an audience which, like my these plays that pull everything out of friend, regards the theatre as a fixed and shape, that substitute gibberish for dia• static entity that is somehow invulnerable logue and a lot of incomprehensible cir• to the cultural currents that have already cular nonsense for a good old-fashioned capsized convention in the other arts. plot line?" Those weren't exact! y his Needless to say, Genet is not simply being words, but that's the gist of what he said. an obscurantist when he sets reality against l composed myself long enough to re• illusion, like two barbershop mirrors mind him that he had a cubist painting whose clou ble faced reflecting images reach on his living room wall and was not averse to infinity. It is important to keep in mind to quoting from the modern poets when the obvious and yet apparently elusive loosened up by a couple of highballs. It fact that this dramatist is addressing us made me realize who many people take with absolute conviction on matters of tre• "revol u t ions" in the other arts for granteLl mendous urgency, regardless of how ellip• but are still hesitant to concede the inevi• tical or many-sided they may seem Lo be. tability and serious purpose of the "new In fact, Genet's work is less susceptible theatre" which has produced Genet as well to the charge of frivolity or theatrical ad• as Ionesco and Beckett. venturism for its own sake than that of his 'iVith this in mind, the strange thing is fellow moderns in the theatre. Unlike not that we should now be confronted Ionesco and Beckett, whose themes, for all with the admittedly difficult "relativism" their intricacies are apt to be removed of the new playwrights, but that the move• from our social framework, Genet, partic• ment should be so long in coming to our ularly in The Blacks, has the breadth and stage, that it should lag so far behind par• integration of a "classicist." By this I allel developrnen L> in art, architecture or Continued on page 14

JUNE 7 ST. MARl(S PLAYHOVSE Sidney Bernstein, George Edgar and Andre Gregory BY ARRANGEMENT WITH GERALDINE LUST present Jean Genet's THE BLACKS Directed by Gene Frankel Translated by Bernard Frechtman 1 Ethel Cynthia Roscoe Lee Godfrey M. Ayler Belgrave Browne Cambridge Charles Louis James Earl Helen Gordone Gossett Jones Make Martin Lex Jay J. Raymond Cicely Monson Riley St. Jacques Tyson Sets by Lighting by Costumes and Masks by Kim E. Swados Lee Watson Movement by Music Supervised by Production Stage Mgr. Production Associate Talley Beatty Charles Gross Maxwell Glanville Alfred Manacher CAST (In order of appearance) Archibald Wellington Deodatus Village Adelaide Bobo Cynthia Belgrave Edgar Alas Newport News Louis Gossett Augusta Snow ...... Felicity Trollop Pardon Helen Martin Stephanie Virtue Diop Diouf Godfrey M. Cambridge Missionary Lex Monson Judge ...... Raymond St. Jacques Governor ...... Jay J. Riley Queen ...... Maya Angelou Make f Valet ...... l Drummer ...... Charles Campbell There will be one ten minute intermission.

B~ENDED SCOTCH WHISKY• 86.8 PROOF• THE FLEISCHMANN DISTILLING CORPORATION, N.Y.C. •SOLE DISTRIBUTORS

8 SHOWBILL CLOSE-VPS ETHEL AYLER (Augusta Snow) was in which he recently recreated in the televi• the Broadway productions of Jamaica with sion version on . He and The Cool World. Last has directed plays for the Judson Studio season she was seen as Carmen in the The• Players. His direction of Detective Story arte-in-the-Park production of Carmen this season at Equity Library Theatre re• ] ones, and she has toured for several sea• ceived excellent reviews by the critics. He sons in Porgy and Bess and Carmen ]ones. has toured the country as a folk and Calyp• CYNTHIA BELG RAVE (Adelaide Bobo), so singer. since coming to New York in 1957, was in LOUIS GOSSETT (Edgar Alas Newport the original Broadway cast of Raisin in News) can currently be seen in the movie the Sun. Her other New York credits in• version of Raisin in the Sun, recreating clude important roles in Take A Giant the part he originated in the Broadway Step, Simply Heavenly, Three By O'Neill, production. He has been seen on Broad• And the Wind Blows and Wingless Vic• way in Desk Set, Take A Giant Step and tory. She has appeared on the screen in at City Center in Lost in the Stars. His Odds Against Tomorrow, A Matter of television appearances include roles on Big Conviction and Something Wild in the Story, Omnibus, Suspicion and You Are City. There. He has recorded a folk-singing al• ROSCOE LEE BROWNE (Archibald bum which is soon to be released. Wellington) made his New York stage JAMES EARL JONES (Deodatus Village) debut with the New York Shakespeare Fes• was seen on Broadway in The Egghead, tival, appearing in , Romeo Sunrise at Campobello and The Cool and Juliet, and under• World. Off-Broadwayhe was seen in The studying . He received excellent Pretender and N. Y. Shakespeare Festival personal notices for his portrayal of the productions of Henry V, Measure for dope tycoon in The Cool World on Broad• Measure and . He made way. Since then he has appeared in The his New York stage debut portraying Sgt. Pretender, Dark of the Moon and in the Blunt in Wedding in japan. On television Toronto company of The Connection. He he has been seen as one of Phil Silvers pla• is also featured in the film of The Con• toon in the Sgt. Bilko Show. nection. MAYA ANGELOU MAKE (Queen) is GODFREY M. CAMBRIDGE (Diouf) making her legitimate debut in The Blacks. l first appeared on Broadway in Herman She has played the dance lead of Ruby in ' \Vouk's Nature's Way. He was featured Porgy and Bess. She has worked the night in Lost in the Stars for the City Center club circuit, appearing in New York at the and in the off-Broadway production of Village Vanguard, Blue Angel, Le Cupidon Take A Giant Step. He was most recently and at the Hungry i in San Francisco. A seen as Lou Brody in the E.L.T. produc• choreographer as well, Miss Make has tion of Detective Story. Mr Cambridge has choreographed two movies, juke Box jam• been seen on television on the Phil Silvers boree and Calypso Heatwave. Show, Search for Tomorrow, Ellery Queen HELEN MARTIN (Felicity Trollop Par• and featured on Naked City. In the film don) appeared earlier this season on Broad• The Last Angry Man he was seen as No• way in ' Period of Ad• body Home, a juvenile hoodlum. justment. Other Broadway credits include CHARLES GORDONE (Valet) is an ac• Take A Giant Step, Native Son, The Long tor, director and singer. Broadway audi• Dream and Deep Are the Roots which she ences have seen him in Mrs. Patterson and also played in London, Scotland and The Climate of Eden in the role of Logan, Wales. Off-Broadway audiences have seen JUNE t ~[XJ@WW~[L[L RECOMMENDS

ARTISTS and WRITERS RESTAURANT-213 West 40th St. Popular with journalists and theatri• MAYHEWS-804 Lex. Ave. cor. 62nd st. cal people for the last 30 years. Old English atmosphere. Home of Irish coffee. Excellent 774 B'way bet. 9th & 10th Sts. lunch, pre- and after-theatre dinner. LO 3-2424. 785 Mad. Ave. bet. 66th & 67th Sts. 1178 3rd Ave. bet. 68th & 69th Sts. BILL'S GAY NINETIES-57 East 54th St. Every• body sings. Continuous entertainment from 9 P.M. D a la carte entrees $3.00 up. Pianist from 7:30. Opens at 7 P.M. No min. or cov. Everything from a soda to a full course dinner, AC. EL 5-0243-8231. perfect for before theatre dining or late snacks. Complete dinnus from $1.95, also moderately priced a la carte. Informal, relaxing atmosphere BRASSERIE-100 East 53rd st. Pour bien man• counter and tables. Open daily 'til 1 A.M. ger a toute heure. 7 days a week. Featuring 2 A.M. Saturdays. after-theatre specialties from Snack to Com• plete Supper. unique Continental Cuisine. Complete Luncheons from $1.85. 7 Course Dinner from $4.25. AC. PL 1-4840. LES PYRENEES- 234 West 48th St. Delightful French Restaurant, favorite with Theatre• goers. Parisian decor. After-Theatre Dinner CAFE LUCCA-110 West 44th St. In the theatre 'til midnight. Cocktail Lounge. Recommended district, pre-theatre luncheons and dinners. by Holiday. Open Sun. from 4. Superb Home-made Lasagna, veal parrrugrarua, our Food, Luncheon, Dinner. CJ 6-0044. specialty. Luncheon from 11:30 A.M., $1.25 up. Dinner from 3:00 P.M., $1.75 up. Cl. Sun. Am. Exp., Carte Blanche and AC. JU LIBORI0-150 W. 47th St. Superb Latin Am: 2-9400. can Cuisine at "West Side's Smartest Restau• rant." Newest Bright Spot in Theatre District. THE CATTLEMAN - An "adult Western" steak Featuring Songstress America Crespo, "The house at 47th St. & Lex. Ave. Bill Farrell at Voice of the Americas"; Jose Moreno, fla• piano in Saloon. 6-oz. cocktails. Luncheon, menco singer; Alejandro Manzano, guitarist; Osvaldo Alen, pianist. Open 7 days. Diner's dinner, supper. Daily from noon; Sat., 5-2; LD. AC. JU 2-6188. Sun., 4-12. YU 6-4988. SHOW YOUR TICKET STUBS (before or after theatre) FOR SPECIAL SUR-PRIZE! PICK AND PACK-French Restaurant. 714 Lex. Ave. 57 I 58 St. EL 5-6683. Genuine native CHINA BOWL-152 West 44th St. (B'way & 6th dishes-Couscous Algerien - Boul/abaisse• Cassoulet Tou/ousain - Civet de Lievre - Ave.). Authentic Cantonese Cuisine in the Anguille au Vert-moderate prices-closed heart of Times Sq. Open daily for Luncheon, Sundays & Holidays. Dinner & After-Theatre. Featuring combina• tion plates & Family Dinners. Cocktails. JU 2-3358. RED LJON-968 3rd Ave. (58th). FL 2-1696 In• timate Restaurant, Cocktail Lounge. Con• DAVY JONES SEAFOOD HOUSE - 103 W. 49th veniently located to East Side theatres. Fine St. {Just off 6th). Serves the ultimate in fine American, foreign cuisine. Reasonable. seafood. Complete luncheons fr. $1.45; a la Luncheon, Dinner, after-Theatre and Cock• carte entrees fr. $1.95. After-theatre snacks tails. Noon till 3 A.M. Closed Sunday. & late supper. Delightful decor. Cozy Drift• wood Bar-Cocktail Lounge. Diners & Am. Exp. Open 7 days. Free dinner parking. AC. ROOSEVELT - Madison Ave. at 45th St. The JU 6-2936. Grill: Dinner and supper dancing to famous bands. The Rib Room: Succulent roastbeef; FORUM OF THE TWELVE CAESARS-57 W. 48th Rough Rider Room; Candlelight Room; Cock• St. Hail! The Caesars welcome you to Sun• tails. For reservations call MU 6-9200. day dining at V Post Meridian and Saturday Luncheon at XII Noon. Luncheon, Cocktails, Pre-theatre Dinner each week day, too. RUSSIAN TEA ROOM - 150 West 57th St. (7th Plaza Vl/-111-IV-V-O. Ave.). Popular with devotees balletomanes, performers. Borscht, blinchiki, shashlik. L from $2.25; D from $3.50, a la HOUSE OF CHAN - 52nd St. & Seventh Ave. carte entrees $2.25 up. After-theatre supper Elegant, epicurean dining with a Mandarin 'til 1. Sat. 'ti/ 2. Open Sun. Bar. co 5-0947. touch. Chinese specialties rise to new culi• nary heights, in most famous of New York's exotic restaurants. Ideal for before-theatre SHANGHAI EAST-1059 3rd Ave. 62/63 Streets. dinner or after-theatre snack. Ask head• TE 8-0850. Open daily noon to 1:30 A.M. Na• waiter to suggest extra-specialties! Bar. L. tive Shanghai Cuisine-featuring dishes from D AC. FL 7-4470. all provinces. Let Sheila Chang suggest your menus. Luncheon, Dinner, Cocktails.

LA BOURGOGNE - 123 West 44th St. A real French bistro with candlelight atmosphere; SUN LUCK-143 West 49th St. Pl 7-1170. Also caters to before- and after-theatre clientele. 75 East 55th St. PL 3-4930. Free parking L 12-3, $1.75 up; D 4-1, $2.60 up & a la carte after 6 P.M.-N.Y.'s only Chinese Restaurants en trees from $1.95. Closed Sun. from 5. JU specializing in Cantonese, Peking, Shanghai 2-4230. and Chungking Cooking. Lunch, Cocktails, Dinner, After-Theatre. Open daily 'til 3 A.M. 10 SHOW BILL NOW SHOWING AT (ENTER JOHNNIE WALKER The Paris Theatre BLACK LABEL-a Scot of ~are and 58th St. off 5th Ave. MU 8-4860 royal character. B om 1820 ... still THE TRUTH going strong. No finer Scotch ever

The Sutton Theatre left the Highlands-or ever will.) 57th. St. near 3rd Ave. PL 9-1412 TWO WOMEN

The Beekman Theatre 65th St. and 2nd Ave. RE 7-2623 ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS

The Fifth Avenue Cinema 5th Ave. at 12th St. WA 4-8339 ASHES AND DIAMONDS (Coming- SECRETS OF WOMEN)

The Murray Hill Theatre 34th St. betw. 3rd & Lex. MU 5-7652 GUNS OF NAVARONE

The Fine Arts Theatre 130 East 58th St. PL 5-6031 GOODBYE AGAIN I The Baronet Theatre I 3rd Ave. betw. 59th & 60th St. EL 5-1663 SATURDAY NIGHT & SUNDAY MORNING'

The Guild Theatre Rockefeller Plaza. PL 7-2406 ROMANOFF AND JULIET

The Trans-Lux 52nd St. Theatre 52nd St. & Lexington Ave. PL 3-2434 MAN IN THE MOON BORN 1820 .•• still. going strong The Plaza Theatre 43 East 58th St. EL 5-3320 NEVER ON SUNDAY

The Little Carnegie Theatre 57th St. betw. 6th & 7th Ave. Cl 6-3454 FRANTIC (Coming- LEDA)

The 55th St. Playhouse 55th St. betw. 6th & 7th Ave. JU 6-7878 By appointment to EVE WANTS TO SLEEP Her Majesty the Queen Scotch Whisky Distillers (July 10-FATE OF A MAN) John Walker & Sons, Limited. Carnegie Hall Cinema 7th Ave. & 57th St. LT 1-0450 BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY. 86.8 PROOF. IMPORTED BALLAD OF NARAYAMA BY CANADA ORY CORPORATION, NEW YORK. N. Y.

JUNE 11 her in Major Barbara, Juno and the Pay• m The Cool World. Her first New York cock and Land Beyond the River. She was appearance was in Talent' 59. Miss Tyson's in the film The Phoenix City Story and on movie appearances include Odds Against television in Green Pastures. Miss Martin Tomorrow with Harry Belafonte, The is an original member of the American Last Angry Man with Paul Muni and A Negro Theatre. Matter of Conviction with Burt Lancaster. LEX MONSON (Missionary) made his She was on the CBS-TV Workshop presen• New York debut in an off-Broadway pro• tation of Brown Girl-Brown Stones, and duction of See How They Run. He ap• on Frontiers of Faith, Camera Three and peared with the Abbott Players of Chicago Directions '61. in productions of Deep Are the Roots, Hamlet, Pygmalion and Dark of the Moon. GENE FRANKEL (Director) has directed Mr. Monson was the head of speech and some of the most successful productions drama at the Nolan School in Detroit and ever presented off-Broadway. Last season the Radio Institute of Chicago, was a dance he directed Sophie Treadwell's Machinal instructor at the Duncan School of Dance for which he was awarded the "Obie" for and founded his own school of drama and Best Director of the season, and Machinal speech in the Windy City. was awarded the Vernon Rice Award for Best Production of the Year. He was pro• JAY J. RILEY (Governor) was the 1960 ducer-director of 's An En• winner of the Ira Aldridge-Rose McClen• emy of the People which had a year's' run don Memorial Award of $2,500 for acting off-Broadway, and was producer-director at the Paul Mann School. On Broadway of Volpone for which he won the "Obie" he created the role of the Waziri in Mister as Best Director, and which was awarded Johnson, and was in Mrs. Patterson, Peter the Lola D'Annunzio Award for the out• Pan, Finian's Rainbow and Native Son. standing achievement in the off-Broadway He was in the films Odds Against Tomor• Theatre. Earlier this season Mr. Frankel row and the forthcoming Mad Dog Coll directed the Broadway production of Once and on television on the US Steel Hour There Was A Russian. He is the recipient and the Jackie Gleason Show. Last season of a Ford Foundation grant for directors. Mr. Riley was acclaimed by the critics for He was a member of the faculty of the his starring performance in Langston American Theatre Wing and has been as• Hughes Shakespeare in . sociated with the Actors Studio since its RAYMOND ST. JACQUES (judge) inception in 1949. Mr. Frankel has di• played the in King of the Dark rected Moment of Fear for N.B.C. and Chamber earlier this season. He was on Volpone for the Play of the Week. He is Broadway in The Cool World and Seventh currently the director and head of the Gene 1 Heaven, in the New York Shakespeare Fes• Frankel Theatre Workshop. tival production of Henry V and with the SID EY BERNSTEIN. The Blacks rep• American Shakespeare Festival at Strat• resents the third successful producer-di• ford. Off-Broadway he appeared in Land rector collaboration between Sidney Bern• Beyond the River and Man With the stein and Gene Frankel over the past Golden Arm. Television audiences have eleven years, the others being the prize• seen him in Green Pastures, Caesar & Cleo• winning Volpone of 1956-7, and the pio• patra and on Big Story and Frontiers of neering off-Broadway production of Nat Faith. He is currently involved in the Turner in 1950-1. Last season Mr. Bern• staging of Macbeth and Troilus and Cres• sida at Stratford. stein, in association with the Washington produced Summer of the 17th CICELY TYSON (Stephanie Virtue Diop) Doll, and in 1958 he presented Horton was on Broadway in folly's Progress in Foote's Midnight Caller and John Turner which she understudied Eartha Kitt, and Davis. 12 SHOWBILL CEORGE EDGAR. While xr.. Edgar, a young Wall-Streeler, has had a long record as a theatre angel, The Blacks represents his first role as a producer. In the medium of the art film, Mr. Edgar produced A Bowl of Cherries which is enjoying wide critical acclaim. ANDRE GREGORY. Last season Mr. Gregory co-produced Deirdre of the Sor• rows, and was manager of the American Theatre at the Brussel's Worlds Fair two years ago. Before that he was assistant to J can Dalrymple and stage managed at the City Center and the Phoenix. He is a mem• ber of the Director's Unit at the Actors Studio. MAXWELL GLANVILLE (Production Stage Manager) is a Founder and Director of the American Community Theatre. He has been actor and stage manager on Broad• way in Simply Heavenly, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and scores of others. He has been seen on television on Play of the Week in and Simply Hea• venly and on CBS Witness, Kraft Theatre and all other major dramatic shows. N°5 STAFF FOR THE BLACKSCO . Assistant Director Frances Frankel Assistant Stage Manager Larney Rutledge CHANEL Press Representatives . . . . • ...... Max Eisen, Robert Larkin, Lenny Traube Press Assistant ...... • . . . Warren Pincus Electrician • ...... Mel Scott Sound by .•...... Arthur Gilbert Assistants to Mr. Swados .. Mel Scott, Marti Stevens, Geraldine Teagarden, Cameron Hudson Assistant to Mr. Watson Robert Stelboum Costume Assistant ...... Bobb Nichols Costume Crew .... Elinor Koehlinger, Jack Edwards, John Brett, Robert Mackey, Joe Barron, Sheila Kortluke, Connie Lord. Ann Froman, Ron Shimono Legal Representative ...... • Jerome B. Lurie Advertising Representatives The Burstin Co. Accountant Sidney Schepps Treasurer ...... Nate Morgen CREDITS Stereo speaker system and tape recorder courtesy of American Sintronics. Audio power equipment: Ter• minal-Hudson Electronics, Inc. Fabrics from Maharam and Gladstone. Jewelry by Smith and St. Jacques. Background Music by Los Congeros. THE MOST TREASURED NAME FIRE NOTICE: The exit indicated by a red light and IN PERFUME sign nearest to the seat you occupy is the shortest route to the street. In the event of fire or other emergency please do not run-WALKTO THAT EXIT. Thoughtless persons annoy patrons and endanger the safety of others by lighting matches or smoking in prohibited areas during the performances and inter• missions. This violates a City ordinance and rend=rs the offender subject to a FINE OF $500.00; IMPRISON• CHANEL MENT OF SIX (6) MONTHS; OR BOTH. Edw. F. Cavanagh, Jr. - FIRE COMMISSIONER

JUNE 13 Continued from page 7 projections as it does to conscious aware• mean he attempts to return to the heart ness. of the great theatre tradition by combin• But in trying to paraphrase Genet, l ing the spiritual excitement of drama as realize I am running into the same prob• ritual with a modern day amalgam of real• lem as the college student who discovered ity and illusion. that he used up the entire examination And of all Genet's dramas, l consider time in discussing Rimbaud's use of two The Blacks his highest expression to date words in conjunction. It is the same way in that it brings his particular theatre in attempting to simplify Genet verbally. complex and powerful aesthetic to bear My job was to project the infinite galaxies upon a crucial contemporary problem that of Genet's meaning without losing track haunts mankind: the crisis in the relations of the dramatic lines he had so carefully between Negroes and whites. So far there laid down along the way and to keep the have been two kinds of .. Negro p1a_,s.·· One play in focus as an immediate emotional has shown the Negro in rebellion against experience, white society, i.e., Nat Tu·111e1· and Ow Jn productions such as Mocliinal, Vol• Lem, etc., the other Ins shown the Negro poue and An Enemy of th e People, ID) struggling to harmonize his life with wh ite concern was to "open up" or extend the cul un e, i.e., Raisin in the Sun. levels o[ meaning and reality by the use o[ masks, ritual, a play-within-a-play, audi• But Genet has given us a new kind of ence participa uon and so forth. In direct• Negro play: he dramatizes the divided fan• ing Genet, who has already heightened his tasies of the Negro, who on the one hand to the limit with such has racial roots ex tending back to a differ• devices, my task was the opposite one of ent history on an alien continent, and yet, keeping the interplay 0£ the characters in on the other hand, is completely condi• tact; to make sure that the thematic out• tioned by the "whiteness" of 'Western cul• line of the drama was always clearly dis• ture. Jn exploring the subconscious o[ the cernible, or, to put it another way, to help co.1tcmForary Negro, Genet also necessar• the audience see all the trees in the woods. ily strikes at the split in the white society Since Genet's characters announce they that provides the Negro with his ambival• are actors at the outset of the play and en t projections in the first place. keep reverting to "off-stage" identities, I Specifically, he does this by showing us was most concerned with maintaining the a group of Negro actors whose announced illusion 0£ improvisation as we got deeper aim is to entertain a white audience in, the and deeper into rehearsal and the lines be• only way they know how. This turns out came rote. Where most directors are faced to be a somewhat terrifying enactment of with the problem of removing all traces of a crime against a white woman, who is the rehearsal process to convey "complete represented by an unseen presence in a reaiity," in The Blacks l had lo keep in coffin at central stage. The audience is mind that my performers were playing called upon to take part in what we might other performers torn between roles in a call the Negroes' "hate therapy" whenever ritual and their real identities, and there• the Negroes need more fuel for their anger. fore realized I must attempt to preserve Further, the Negroes portray whites, wear• the feeling of a process unfolding. The ing masks for this purpose. Obviously, magic of watching an actor in rehearsal here we have a play within a play and then becoming the character must be shared by other plays within these, giving us the the audience and made a part of the play. multi-faceted mirror view of a cultural One of the things that intrigued me was reality that owes as much to unconscious the way the all-Negro cast caught on to the

14 SHOWBILL