A Thousand Clowns, Herb Gardner’s successful Broadway comedy
first produced in 1962, is running at the Berkshire
Theatre Group (Fitzpatrick Main Stage) until July 28. The play, which a few years later was
made into a film, starred Jason Robards and Barry Gordon, who repeated their
stage performances. The play’s theme of conformity (or non-conformity, in the
case of Murray Burns, the central character) was very much of its time. Now,
fifty years later, the struggle to retain one’s personality in a dog-eat-dog
world may still have currency, but as laid out by Gardner, the arguments are
more tired than compelling.
Murray Burns, a television
writer, has given up his job because he cannot surrender to the daily grind. He
cannot buy into a routine that millions of others can and he has no resources
for managing the dilemma – no resources other than shouting at his
neighbours and passersby on the street, talking to the recorded voice of the
weather report he calls up on his phone and shutting down efforts by his
brother for him to return to work. In addition, Burns takes care of his 12-year
old nephew, an old-young man whose mother, Murray’s sister, abandoned many
years before. But the thing is that the older man is training the youngster to
see the world and to live in it as he does. So this not-so-odd couple shares a
degree of cynicism that is cute on the kid but casts a dubious shadow on his
future.
The Child Welfare Board arrives
in the persons of Albert Amundson – repressed, humourless – and
Sandra Markowitz – repressed, insecure – and they have to file a
report about the living situation in which they find young Nick. It’s apparent
that they will recommend removing the child from Murray’s care. The situation
moves from here to the world of pure fiction as Murray and Sandra find
themselves attracted to one another enough that she spends the night with him.
This uptight, frightened social worker stays with the eccentric and
irresponsible (her words) older guy and then, so turned on by him is she, that
she decides to redecorate his apartment and to move in.
The balance of the play focuses
on Murray’s efforts to find work so that he can maintain his watch over his
nephew. Finally, he does return to the television show he had walked out of
just before the start of the play. Nick questions the move as cowardice, but
Murray explains that it is what is both demanded and required. Sandra, now
called Sandy (sex with a bohemian can do that), returns more determined than
ever to redecorate both the apartment and Murray’s life. And the curtain falls
with Murray sitting on his window ledge letting it all happen.
The ending of the play is a
rather disheartening moment: we’ve watched a man struggle to stay outside of
the mainstream and we’ve heard him rant about why he cannot simply walk into
what he sees as a non-life. We’ve met some of the people that define the world
he has left and we understand very well the decision that Murray Burns has
made. We’ve even seen him in a brief relationship with a young woman that he
has been able to reassure, though hardly enough to convince us that theirs is
worth much more than one night. And we’ve seen him train his young charge about
the ways of the world. And just like that, it all changes gear and Murray Burns
sits and takes it. The play ends and the guy has lost.
Gardner knew full well that he
was writing a comedy with a social perspective, but he was more interested in
the comedy than the societal analysis. And he is adept with throwaway,
observational comedy. Less so with plotting and even less with character
development. The play’s limited strength is the dialogue written for Murray and
for his nephew, Nick. They are, after all, the heart of the piece, and they
draw us closer to this prefabricated world than any of the others can. CJ Wilson plays Murray Burns with considerable charm and
skilled understatement, but he is not ideally cast and never manages to create
a man who has stepped ‘off the world’ so that we can understand his internal
battle. The actor is just too together, too physically in charge of the worlds
he inhabits, both inside and outside his apartment, for us to buy into his
philosophy. The window shouting exchanges with neighbours and the telephone
shtick never read as anything more than scripted cleverness. And this is not an
attack on Wilson – I’m not sure that the writing itself can get past its
two-dimensional depth. Russell Posner plays the nephew with ease,
charm and a strikingly stagey dialect that no one else shares, suggesting that
he is living far away from his home turf.
Of the other company members, Rachel Bay Jones and James Barry,
playing the couple from the Child Welfare Board, have been encouraged to adopt
a cartoon-quality vocal and physical approach that tips the play into farce off
the top with the result that there is no danger or risk for anyone. As staged,
these two representatives of the ‘outside world’ merely affirm Murray’s bias and
they demonstrate to Nick that his uncle holds all the winning cards. The added
problem with this directorial decision (Kyle
Fabel is the
director) is that the relationship between Murray and Sandra can’t register as
anything but unlikely after such an introduction. Andrew Polk
finds the right balance, as Murray’s brother, playing very easy at the top and
managing to inject warmth and humanity in his longer second act scene. Jordan Gelber plays Leo Herman, the television
star that Murray cannot abide. Gelber holds nothing back as he brings Murray’s
offstage nightmare to onstage reality, and the actor deserves much credit for
offering no apology as he does so. The role demands the discomfort that Gelber
creates.
“A
Thousand Clowns” has had only two Broadway revivals, the first starring
a too-old Judd Hirsch (a last minute replacement for a dismissed and
equally too-old Robert Klein) and the second starring an unlikely Tom
Selleck. This
vehicle would seem an ideal magnet for many male stars, but the play’s
time has
passed and its comic targets have no bull’s-eyes and, without them, the
laughs
just don’t mount up.