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Summer stock in the Big Town his finally wound up with "The Tender Trap," which was produced on Broadway, legend has it, in 1954 and was subsequently made into a fairly successful movie.
While it made a certain contrived quality even then, - the stage version that is - still, there were people like Ronnie Graham, Robert Preston and Kim Hunter who made the comedy more than palatable. In the new, 41st Street Theatre version, Jean Shepherd is no Ronnie Graham, though he tries hard enough to put the bachelor role over believably. The others, with the exception, per-haps, of Lisa Carroll as the violinist - who is effective - give uneven performances.
Matt Cimber has attempted to lend the play more pace than he did the outfit's previous attrac-tions, but he loses out to the general air of listlessness sur¬rounding the production. The Max Shulman - Robert Paul Smith play was as good a choice as any, we suppose, to top off the "summer comedy festival" - which was anything but that.
How to explain the deflated quality of these offerings at 41st Street? The project assuredly had much to work with than the general run of strawhats in re¬sort areas. It is a fairly well-equipped theatre, the casts were certainly superior to the resident companies in most summer stock outfits, and there's more know-how all around. Yet the result has been negligible.
Granted one or two of the productions, such as "The Little Hat," should never have been presented again - they were fail¬ures originally. But the others were of a different stripe. It may well be that New York, though it may be a Summer Festival (which is also open to debate) is not a place for Summer Com¬edy Festival.
It is within the experience of this observer that summer stock is indigenous to places which best serve the season—namely, coun¬try and shore. These are stock's natural habitat, as it were, and you can't put it in the middle of Times Square and call it "sum¬mer stock" - Summer Festival or no Summer Festival.
Would these 41st Street productions have been offered midst more appealing surroundings they would, we feel sure, have seemed more enjoyable. Somehow, the bad spots always seem less glaring in a barn. One is less critical, too, but that's another angle, already.
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'The Tender Trap'
A revival of the Man Shulman-Robert Paul Smith comedy. Staged by Malt Cumber; presented by Barbara Griner and Eleanor Horn; scenery by Jerome Liotta; production stage manager, Tom Glenn. At the 41st Street Theatre, 125 West Forty-first Street.
THE CAST
Charlie Reader.............. Jean Shepherd
Poppy Matson............... Marcia Levant
Joe McCall.................... Kenneth Brooks
Jessica Collins.............. Rosemary Haley
Sylvia Crews................. Lisa Carron
Julie Gills...................... Ellen Evans
Earl Lindquist................ Marshall Breeden
Sol Schwartz................. Gustave Sabin
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