| Abstrakt: |
This article presents information on various theatrical productions available for audiences in New York City. The first thing to be said about the musical "On Your Toes" is that it is being played as if it were a brand-new work, honorably ready to stand or fall on the strength of its ability to entertain us in contemporary terms. Not the least taint of patronizing archness infects the show. "On Your Toes" must have been thought to be practicing a revolutionary boldness in permitting the success of the show to depend upon but two big numbers, both of unusual length and complexity. There are far fewer songs than audiences of any period expect to encounter in a musical. The time frame of the play "The Slab Boys" is circa 1957, and the place is a town in Scotland; during the play one feels as remote from New York City in the eighties. The autobiographical content of the play is evidently high; like many a writer before him who began life at a level of mere drudgery, author John Byrne seems to have summoned up his recollections, both comic and miserable, as a means of exorcising them. |
