Category Archives: Joyce E. Henry

ERROL JOHN: ‘MOON ON A RAINBOW SHAWL’ (REVIEW PICK, UK) · Mar 16th

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 3/15.)

Errol John's play has had a strange history. It won an Observer Play competition in 1957, was optioned by a commercial management and insultingly mistreated, and has enjoyed a fitful afterlife. But it amply justifies revival since, in its vivid portrait of life in a Trinidadian backyard in the immediate postwar period, it explains much about Caribbean history.

CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE REMEMBRANCES: JOYCE E. HENRY ON O’NEILL’S ‘ICEMAN’ (Part V) · Mar 8th

(In early 2010, Joyce E. Henry was a guest blogger on Stage Voices, recounting the early days of Circle in the Square. With Theodore Mann—and Henry—in our thoughts, this is the last of her five posts.)

RE-PRODUCING 'THE ICEMAN'

Joyce E. Henry, Ph.D.

There were other unwelcome visitors to my lobby box office besides the copulating rats. From time to time Bowery residents would stop in, looking for a handout. At showtime, with customers waiting for the theater to open, their presence was a tad embarrassing, and drove Ted Mann crazy. He would tell them in no uncertain terms to “Get Out!” and instructed me to say the same. And as a New Yorker, I could be as callous as he.

But there was one fellow who seemed to be a little different. He would not come right before the show started, but, perhaps, in the middle of the afternoon. He was a giant of a man, with a big head surrounded by a wisp of white hair; his cheeks were ruddy and his eyes were blue. I fancied he might have been a sailor—he looked as though he belonged on a ship. There was no question he was looking for a handout, though, but he had the decency or tact not to approach customers—just me. My finances were stretched thin as it was, but I could usually find a quarter or so to send him on his way with “Many thanks” and a “God bless you” or two.

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CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE REMEMBRANCES: JOYCE E. HENRY ON O’NEILL’S ‘ICEMAN’ (Part IV) · Mar 7th

(In early 2010, Joyce E. Henry was a guest blogger on Stage Voices, recounting the early days of Circle in the Square. With Theodore Mann—and Henry—in our thoughts, those five entries will be reposted over the next week.)

RE-PRODUCING 'THE ICEMAN'

Joyce E. Henry, Ph.D.

Among the actors, there were several who would remain in the public eye: Peter Falk, Leo Penn, George Segal, William Daniels, and Henderson Forsythe. There was a German who had worked with Reinhardt and a middle-aged fat man who had never been on the professional stage before. Jason Robards, of course, was the star. Often I went up into the theatre just to watch his first entrance, which was always different, with new tricks, new ad libs to the actors, something special for each of the assembled denizens of Harry Hope's establishment. And with his entrance the level of excitement leaped high.

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CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE REMEMBRANCES: JOYCE E. HENRY ON O’NEILL’S ‘ICEMAN’ (Part III) · Mar 6th

(In early 2010 Joyce E. Henry was a guest blogger on Stage Voices, recounting the early days of Circle in the Square. With Theodore Mann—and Henry—in our thoughts, those five entries will be reposted over the next week.)

RE-PRODUCING 'THE ICEMAN'

Joyce E. Henry, Ph.D.

We paid the union electrician $50.00 a week to stay away (a young actor handled the lights for $5.00). We paid $125.00 monthly to a mysterious person in City Hall who was supposed to keep us out of trouble. We paid the Building Inspector–that is, Ted did, in the Men's Room, I was never quite certain of the figure–and I paid Timmy, the Irish cop on the beat, $2.00 per week, which he supposedly spread around the station house. He earned his money, though; whenever I had an unruly patron or visiting Bowery inhabitant, a loud shriek in the Square would bring Timmy on the run.

In addition, the building always needed something. Seats collapsed depositing patrons on the floor. Fuses blew, requiring a hunt of hours for the offending source. When it snowed the roof leaked, usually onto the most expensive seats. We went out on the roof and shoveled snow. "The first rule of the off-Broadway theatre is know your drains," said Ted. The toilet in the ladies rest room clogged. The plumber characterized it as a "prima donna. Sometime she does and sometimes she don’t.”

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CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE REMEMBRANCES: JOYCE E. HENRY ON O’NEILL’S ‘ICEMAN’ (Part II) · Mar 5th

RE-PRODUCING 'THE ICEMAN'

Joyce E. Henry, Ph.D.

The lobby was a long, narrow hall space down a flight of stairs, and what pretended to be a box office was a simple desk open to the world with tickets and cash in a drawer. The boy at the desk was the roommate of an old friend; as I greeted him, I noticed someone walk through the lobby, who stared somewhat curiously at me and then vanished.

“That’s Ted,” said the boy at the desk.

“Oh.” I had barely seen him. He’d come from somewhere so quietly and passed through so quickly I had no image remaining, but when the boy called out that I was there to see him, he suddenly materialized from a room, which seemed to run underneath the sidewalk (later, I recognized a dressing room).

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CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE AND THEODORE MANN: JOYCE E. HENRY ON O’NEILL’S ‘ICEMAN’ · Mar 4th

RE-PRODUCING 'THE ICEMAN'

Joyce E. Henry, Ph.D.

"It was raining the day I met Ted Mann [one of the three producers at the Circle in the Square]; a cold relentless, depressing October drizzle, which soaked up the color of the world like a sponge and squeezed it back out again in dull tones of grey and black."

I came across this pseudo Melvillean passage from the beginning of one of the many pages I wrote while working at the Circle in the Square during the run of The Iceman Cometh. Somehow, innocent, though I was, I recognized that I was a participant–albeit a very minor one–in theatrical history, and I wanted to observe and record as much as I could. I wish I had done more.

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