Volume 7, Number 6 · October 20, 1966
Straight Play
By Elizabeth Hardwick
A Delicate Balance
by Edward Albee
Martin Beck Theater
Yet once again, o ye laurels! We open the season here in New York with another of those little surprises to which our society is given, those subtle seepages and shrinkings that mock the expanding walls. We have reached in a time of diversity, a sort of accidental monotheism in the theater: There is now only one influential daily critic, Walter Kerr, writing in The New York Times. It has generally been said In the theater that for a straight play only the Times 'really matters.' The prestige and distribution of the Times conferred upon the critic, whoever he might be, extraordinary powers. But still there was the Herald-Tribune, perhaps put into second place because of its lesser economic strength, and yet clearly influential. It has always been atrocious that the theater should have been under the dominion of the immediate journalistic response—a tyranny both peculiar and unnecessary. None of the other literary arts has ever lain so submissively under the bones of its judges—or now, its judge. Daily reviews have appeared to be the only means of marketing the dramatic product and so gradually the fate of the whole enterprise has been entrusted to the shuffling goodwill of 'the critics.' Producers, actors, and writers bend, saying with resignation: in their fitful taste is our salvation. A certain middle-ground project might fare well enough, and yet for other plays and productions the opinions of the daily press are of no consequence whatsoever. Nevertheless, the highest and the lowest have had to beseech, to hope.
Review, 1238 words
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