''Johnny No-Trump'' is a play written by Mary Mercier which ran for one performance on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
.
Productions
''Johnny No-Trump'' opened at the
Cort Theatre
The James Earl Jones Theatre, originally the Cort Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 138 West 48th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. It was built in ...
on October 8, 1967 and ran for 5 previews and one regular performance. Directed by
Joseph Hardy, it starred
James Broderick
James Joseph Broderick III (March 7, 1927November 1, 1982) was an American actor. He is known for his role as Doug Lawrence in the television series ''Family'', which ran from 1976 to 1980, and he played a pivotal role in the 1975 film ''Dog Day ...
,
Sada Thompson
Sada Carolyn Thompson (September 27, 1927 – May 4, 2011) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was known to television audiences as Kate Lawrence in '' Family'' (1976-1980).
Life and career
She was born Sada Carolyn Thomps ...
,
Pat Hingle,
Don Scardino
Donald Joseph Scardino (born February 17, 1949) is an American television director and producer and a former actor.
Career Acting
Scardino was born in New York City, to jazz musician parents, Dorothy Denny Scardino and Charles Scardino. His f ...
and, making her Broadway debut,
Bernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters ( ''née'' Lazzara; born February 28, 1948) is an American actress, singer, and children's book author. Over a career spanning more than six decades, she has starred in musical theatre, television and film, performed in solo co ...
.
''Johnny No Trump'' was revived by the Equity Library Theater (New York) in 1970,
The Cleveland Play House
Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square whe ...
in 1972, and Iglesia's Theater Club (New York) in 1975.
Synopsis
Johnny, a teen-aged young man, tries to come to terms with himself and his family. He wants to leave school to be a poet, to the dismay of his schoolteacher mother. The play takes place in February 1965, in a small
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
, New York town. The characters consist of 16-year-old Johnny Edwards; Florence Edwards, his mother; Alexander Edwards, her estranged husband; Harry Armstrong, Johnny's uncle; and Bettina, a "very grown-up" 15-year-old neighbor.
Reception
In his review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', critic
Clive Barnes
Clive Alexander Barnes (13 May 1927 – 19 November 2008) was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for ''The New York Times'', and, from 1978 until his death, ''The New York Post.'' Barnes had sign ...
wrote: "There are times when the characters...seem to be talking with absolute truthfulness...within seconds the play... is offering slick gibberish." Barnes wrote after it closed "...I regret
twas abruptly taken off by its producer before it had a chance to get a word-of-mouth resuscitation."
Walter Kerr
Walter Francis Kerr (July 8, 1913 – October 9, 1996) was an American writer and Broadway theatre critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals as well as the author of several books, genera ...
, also in ''The New York Times'', wrote that Mercier "is plainly talented, she is already capable of a blunt and crackling speech that insists upon being listened to. ... To compound the disaster, the production was superior at every level: director Joseph Hardy displayed a fresh sensibilty that coaxed an altogether unfamiliar reality – at once supple and hardheaded – out of a familiar kind of domestic crisis. ... There was ample treasure worth finding."
The play has been discussed in several books, including ''Shoptalk: Conversations About Theater and Film With Twelve Writers'' by Dennis Brown (1993); ''Broadway's Beautiful Losers'' by Marilyn Stasio (1972); ''On Stage: The Making of a Broadway Play'' by Susan Jacobs (1967); and ''
The Season'' by
William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays '' ...
(1969). Goldman calls ''Johnny No-Trump'' "The best new American play of the season".
One of the producers,
Richard Barr
Richard David Barr (September 6, 1917 – January 9, 1989) was an American theater director and producer. He served as the president of the League of American Theatres and Producers from 1967 until his death.
Biography
Richard David Barr was bor ...
, in announcing the closing, stated: "The fact that the critics did not appreciate that this play was so far above the level...of almost any American play for the past few seasons indicates to me that there is a great struggle ahead for sensitive, intelligent, talented playwrights."
[Zolotow, Sam. "Broadway Score: 8 Opened, 5 Closed: 'Johnny No-Trump' Is Latest Fatality Of New Season", ''The New York Times'', October 10, 1967, p. 55]
William Goldman later wrote that the play struggled because it arrived in New York "so quietly":
It had no power connected with it. Sada Thompson
Sada Carolyn Thompson (September 27, 1927 – May 4, 2011) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was known to television audiences as Kate Lawrence in '' Family'' (1976-1980).
Life and career
She was born Sada Carolyn Thomps ...
was not then Sada Thompson. And Pat Hingle was what he always is, which is a good, solid actor, but he doesn't sell tickets like Rosalind Russell
Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedienne, screenwriter, and singer,Obituary ''Variety'', December 1, 1976, p. 79. known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the H ...
. So the critics were allowed to pick at it. The same play, word for word, wouldn't have been any better done if it had come in as a David Merrick production, with Elia Kazan directing, and a star. But it's my contention that if the play had come in with power, then people would have overlooked any flaws, because those who saw it were so moved by it.[Dennis Brown, ''Shoptalk'', Newmarket Press, 1992 p 72]
Notes
References
*Brown, Dennis.
''Shoptalk: Conversations About Theater and Film with Twelve Writers, One Producer–and Tennessee Williams' Mother''(1992), Newmarket Press,
*Goldman, William
''The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway'' (1969), p. 67 Hal Leonard Corporation, (1969)
*Jacobs, Susan. ''On Stage: The Making of a Broadway Play'' (1967) Alfred A. Knopf
*Stasio, Marilyn
''Broadway's Beautiful Losers''(1973, ©1972), New York, Dell
External links
*
*{{Playbill production, /johnny-no-trump-cort-theatre-vault-0000003513
archive at Playbill
Synopsis
1967 plays