Miracle on Broadway: And the Box-Office Magic of the Bible

MIRACLE ON BROADWAY: AND THE BOX-OFFICE MAGIC OF THE BIBLE ARCHIBALD MAcLEISH'S J.B., a verse recasting of the biblical Job story, opened on Broadway several months ago to excited customer and critical acclaim. The play's immediate box-office success was made more piquant by its arrival in the midst of a pre-Christmas newspaper strike that seemingly prevented the usual advance advertising and public preparation, a fact emphasized by both Time and Life. No direct claim of divine intervention was made, but Life's double year'send entertainment issue not only captioned the miracle of the play's "triumph without benefit of newspapers," but between shots of a pleading Job and painfully concentrated author and producer, made only fleeting reference to the favorable reactions, "reported in bits and pieces over TV, radio, and by word of mouth." Seemingly eager to revel in a modem "miracle," the Luce publications thus virtually ignored the various peculiarly fortunate "external" factors contributing to the play's warm reception. Yet these carefully planned, as well as fortuitous, "extras" contributed much to the production 's success. And actually if local newspaper coverage was lacking , that of the other media was not. For example, both NBC and CBS were more than generous with television and radio time. Author, director , and actors appeared before cameras and mikes on key coast-tocoast programs for several days prior to curtain time. That they did their jobs well is not surprising, for these gentlemen comprise what the sportswriters would term "an all-star lineup." Author-lawyer MacLeish is former Librarian.of Congress, Assistant Secretary of State, head of the American UNESCO delegation, and holder of two Pulitzer Prizes ("33" and "52"). He is probably second only to Robert Frost in being the American poet best known to his countrymen. Director Elia Kazan has gained an enviable reputation on both stage and screen for his adroit handling of Tennessee Williams' dramatic shockers and Marlon Brando's temperamental talents. Raymond Massey has created the twentieth century's dramatic image of Lincoln, thus his J.B. role of God may well seem to many but a small step up. And young Shakespearean Christopher Plummer, who plays Satan, scored heavily several seasons back as Oedipus on TV's Omnibus. Only the key role of modem-businessman Job is played by an "unknown," Pat Hingle, a Texas actor of fullback proportions. However, even these noteworthy gentlemen do not merit all of the credit for the public's openhanded treatment of a modem biblical verse-tale that had not been "adequately advertised." Actually, the nation's literary-minded were informed of the play's ex45 46 MODERN DRAMA May istence more than a year ago by a Saturday Review lead article hailing its publication. Poetry editor John Ciardi, modern poetry's whiteplumed knight, praised MacLeish's "great technical achievement ... his forging of a true poetic stage line for our times." But if Mr. Ciardi, currently the most vocal and articulate exponent of the textual-analytic approach to the poetic page, was first to proclaim publicly J.B.'s literary qualities, he was not to be alone. Other reviewers echoed his praise. (A critical reaction downgrading Ciardi's estimate is only now asserting itself.) And the Book Find Club coupled it with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisited for a double selection, reprinting the gist of Ciardi's review. Ciardi's evaluation has already been proved wrongif only partially-in at least one instance: Recognizing that Broadway would grasp the poem's dramatic potentialities "in time," he predicted that it was "too strong ... for Broadway this season or next." Yet it has been welcomed to the theater with almost indecent haste. Obviously producer Alfred De Liarge, Kazan, and backers harbored no serious doubts (at least not serious enough to prevent venturing) that the biblical box-office magic, cultivated so continuously and successfully by Hollywood, would prevail. Emboldened by critical enthusiasm, they could feel assured the nation's conforming intellectuals would queue up with panting eagerness to witness a graphic reaffirmation of the durability of the ancient verities. They could rely also on equal acceptance from the sensitive horde of general theatergoers whose egos...