Repertory in New York

The most significant event of this past New York season for theatergoers and professionals alike was the appearance, for a brief seven weeks at an off-Broadway playhouse, of an American repertory company called APA, Association of Producing Artists. Neither the Old Vic, The Greek Tragedy Theater nor the Royal Swedish Theater caused such a stir as greeted the APA’s short sojourn here. The company was founded two-and-a-half years ago by its director, Ellis Rabb, and his wife, the beautiful and brilliant Rosemary Harris. Around her he has drawn a company of first-rate talent, which includes George Grizzard, Gerry Jedd, Nancy Marchand, Will Geer, Earl Montgomery and Joanna Roos. Their season was shortened by the departure of Rosemary Harris for England where she is to co-star with Olivier in an Elizabethan cycle. In the autumn she will rejoin APA at Ann Arbor, where APA has been hired as the professional company in residence at the University of Michigan. Next spring, New York.

Rosemary Harris’ immense versatility is the pivot of APA. Her performances are of the highest professional level, warm, graceful, full of humor and a most ingratiating artistry. Page Johnson, as a BVD-bedecked hick in George M. Cohan’s The Tavern, leering, threatening, sticking out his tongue, is a rough diamond of farcical histrionics, from his unshaven cheeks to his bowed, bony knees. Nancy Marchand as the selfish and ageing Arkadina in Chekhov’s The Seagull illuminates the stage with stroke after stroke of genius, a performance of exquisite detail and miraculously appropriate idiosyncrasy. Joanna Roos as Pauline in the same play seizes the flower given to her lover, Dr. Dorn, by Nina, shreds it in bits, hurls it in the air and stalks off with the total self-composure of the totally self-righteous. Clayton Corzatte as Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, all in gold, licks his chops with a comic heartlessness as he auctions off his family portraits in a pearly tenor which the dissipation that has brought the auction about has not touched.

RM

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R. Bruce Moody

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The most significant event of this past New York season for theatergoers and professionals alike was the appearance, for a brief seven weeks at an off-Broadway playhouse, of an American repertory company called APA, Association of Producing Artists. Neither the Old Vic, The Greek Tragedy Theater nor the Royal Swedish Theater caused such a stir as greeted the APA’s short sojourn here. The company was founded two-and-a-half years ago by its director, Ellis Rabb, and his wife, the beautiful and brilliant Rosemary Harris. Around her he has drawn a company of first-rate talent, which includes George Grizzard, Gerry Jedd, Nancy Marchand, Will Geer, Earl Montgomery and Joanna Roos. Their season was shortened by the departure of Rosemary Harris for England where she is to co-star with Olivier in an Elizabethan cycle. In the autumn she will rejoin APA at Ann Arbor, where APA has been hired as the professional company in residence at the University of Michigan. Next spring, New York.

Rosemary Harris’ immense versatility is the pivot of APA. Her performances are of the highest professional level, warm, graceful, full of humor and a most ingratiating artistry. Page Johnson, as a BVD-bedecked hick in George M. Cohan’s The Tavern, leering, threatening, sticking out his tongue, is a rough diamond of farcical histrionics, from his unshaven cheeks to his bowed, bony knees. Nancy Marchand as the selfish and ageing Arkadina in Chekhov’s The Seagull illuminates the stage with stroke after stroke of genius, a performance of exquisite detail and miraculously appropriate idiosyncrasy. Joanna Roos as Pauline in the same play seizes the flower given to her lover, Dr. Dorn, by Nina, shreds it in bits, hurls it in the air and stalks off with the total self-composure of the totally self-righteous. Clayton Corzatte as Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, all in gold, licks his chops with a comic heartlessness as he auctions off his family portraits in a pearly tenor which the dissipation that has brought the auction about has not touched.