The Good
Soup
by Felicien Marceau
Θεατρική παράσταση Μάρτιος 1960
Plymouth
Theatre, New York City
Time
magazine February 1960
Θεατρογραφικά
The Good Soup, Broadway production (1960)
(φωτο: The New York Public
Library)
Ruth
Gordon & Ernest Truex
in
“The Good Soup” (1960)
(φωτο: The New York Public
Library)
The Good Soup, by Felicien Marceau,
adapted by Garson Kanin, uses one of the theater’s favorite recipes, the life
story of a prostitute (Marie Paule).
In Marie
Paule’s older years actress is Ruth Gordon (her first Broadway appearance since
The Matchmaker); in Marie Paule’s younger
years actress is Diane Cilento. Both are onstage much of the time, the old
whore passing comment on the young.
Among her
lovers and clients: Sam Levene, Ernest Truex.
The play was
favorably received in Philadelphia by two out of four reviewers. The News, whose regular critic was barred
from the theater by Producer David (“The Abominable Showman”) Merrick for being
five minutes late, called it “an indigestible mixture of sex and booze, sex and
gambling, sex and broken homes.” (March
2.)
Time magazine, February 15,
1960, column: Theater, p. 67.
(από τον ιστότοπο:
Theatricalia)
The
Good Soup by Felicien Marceau
Παραστάσεις:
2-19 Μαρτίου
1960
Plymouth
Theatre, New York City.
Συγγραφέας:
Felicien Marceau
Προσαρμογή-μετάφραση:
Garson Kanin
Σκηνοθεσία: Garson Kanin
Συν-σκηνοθεσία: Andre Barsacq
Σκηνικά-κοστούμια: Jacques Noel
Φωτισμός: Albert
Alloy
H
διανομή:
/
- 1st Patron: John Myhers
/
- 1st Tough: George S. Irving
/
- 2nd Patron: Morgan Sterne
/
- 2nd Tough: Pat Harrington
/
- 3rd Patron: Lou Antonio
/
- 4th Patron: Bill Becker
/
- Alphonse: George S. Irving
/
- Angele: Mildred Natwick
/
- Armand: John Myhers
/
- Armand’s Mother: Mildred Natwick
/
- Bertha: Hilda Bawner
/
- Ernest: Bill Becker
/
- House Painter: Bill Becker
/
- Irma: Sasha von Scherler
/
- Jacquot: Charles Robinson
/
- Jeanine: Nicola Lubitsch
/
- Joseph: Ernest Truex
/
- Lecasse: Lou Antonio
/
- Madame Desvaux: Sasha von Sherler
/
- Madame Roger: Dorothy Whitney
/
- Madame Thonnard: Dorothy Whitney
/
- Marie Paule 1: Ruth Gordon
/
- Marie Paule 2: Diane Cilento
/
- Marie Paule’s Mother: Mildred Natwick
/
- Mauricette: Hilda Bawner
/
- Mollard: Morgan Sterne
/
- Monsieur Gaston: Ernest Truex
/
- Odilon: Sam Levene
/
- Raymond: George S. Irving
/
- Roger: Morgan Sterne
/
- Roger’s customer: Bill Becker
/
- The Barman: Pat Harrington
/
- The Chambermaid: Barbara Lou Mattes
/
- The Groupier: Jules Munshin
/
- The Doorman: George S. Irving
/
- The Other Man: George S. Irving
/
- The Shady One: Lou Antonio
/
- The Skater: Barbara Lou Mattes
κείμενο 2:
The
Good Soup
The Good Soup (adapted from the French
of Felicien Marceau by Garson Kanin) constitutes, even to the form it takes,
the reminiscences of a coldly successful French cocotte. Ruth Gordon, as the
middle-aged Marie-Paule, unfolds them to a Monte Carlo croupier, while Diane
Cilento acts out Marie-Paule’s earlier self.
Later, when
Marie-Paule is no longer young, Actress Ruth Gordon wistfully dismisses Actress
Diane Cilento as her “vanished youth” and herself takes over the part.
From prostitution
in “half-hour hotels,” Marie-Paule had gone on to living grubbily with men, and
then to being kept, and then to marriage and motherhood and expanding her
husband’s business. When she tumbled at last to go into well-heeled banishment,
it was, ironically, for just once blundering through compassion.
Told in
neat, revue-skit-sized flashbacks, The
Good Soup uses a good deal of stage material that is somewhat reminiscent
itself. Its scenes are oftener familiar and hard-headed than lighthearted and
original, so that in terms of lightly farcical entertainment, The Good Soup
needs more sass and zest. But Soup, with the story it has to tell, need not
only be as frothy as champagne, or as French as snails; it can also, and with
rewards of its own, be as French as money. There is nothing girlishly rueful or
gallantly raffish about Marie-Paule; though now and then touching, she is
cynical and hard. “I don’t forgive,” she says, “even the ones who have done
nothing to me.”
She was not
ruined or misled; she was never sentimentally tempted or morally torn; the one
time love came to her it was overwhelmingly physical; regret was not for being
calculating but for miscalculating, not for her tarnished youthful past, but
for its passing. She has not mellowed or grown; she has only grown older.
Despite her
jauntily presented and even half-parodied experiences, hers is a real portrait
of a woman; and despite being often fashioned of cliches, hers—like that of
Restoration-comedy worldlings—is an authentic attitude. But just as Restoration
comedy can grow tiresome in constantly pursuing sex for pleasure.
The Good Soup
begins to flag in constantly pursuing it for pay. For the light touch to win
out over the spotted truth, Marie-Paule’s career needs more amusing variety, or
she herself needs a sense of humor, or Playwright Marceau a livelier wit.
Yet, in
addition to piquant staging and bright performances, notably by Actress Ruth Gordon
and Mildred Natwick, The Good Soup
has its own kind of interest of succeeding with the ice rather than the
champagne, and shows character for preferring a measure of flatness to falsity.
Time
magazine
The Theater, “New Plays on Broadway”, 14 March 1960.
Υπερσύνδεση:
The
Theater: New Plays on Broadway, Mar. 14, 1960
The Good Soup
The Good Soup: Book by Felicien Marceau. Produced
by David Merrick at the Plymouth Theatre (NYC - 1960)
Starring:
Ruth Gordon (Wife of Garson Kanin),
Sam Levene,
Ernest Truex,
Diane Cilento (Wife of Sean Connery and widow of
Anthony Shaffer),
Mildred Natwick,
Jules Munshin,
George S. Irving,
Pat Harrington, etc.
Adapted and directed by Garson Kanin
(από τον ιστότοπο:
University of Florida)
ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ
[ ανάρτηση 22 Δεκεμβρίου 2024 :
The Good Soup
by Felicien Marceau
θεατρική παράσταση Μάρτιος
1960
Plymouth Theatre, New York City
Time magazine February 1960
Θεατρογραφικά ]
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