Mary Martin and Carol Channing in Legends!, a new comedy by James Kirkwood, directed by Clifford Williams. The show was at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles during March and will go on to New Orleans, San Antonio, and San Francisco in May.
San Francisco: Star #1 signed. Star #2 still holding out on committing to play in a Broadway-bound comedy. (Doesn't like the blue language in the script.)
South Hampton: Author rewrites script. All four letter words re-assigned to Star #1. Star #2 now takes part, partially persuaded by son, also a famous actor.
New York, Washington, D.C.: Much ado in the press over launching of new show with two major stars and a Pulitzer Prize winning author.
Dallas: Opening delayed at the last minute because Star #2 didn't have a handle on her lines. Press lukewarm, at best.
Los Angeles: The Hollywood critics tried to find the high points in the show. Star #1 did the best she could; Star #2 politely omitted from the notices. The script, as memorable as a 1975 TV movie, was dismissed as not achieving what it set out to do. In the minor parts, decent Broadway veterans looked either buffoonish or talent-less--though they received medium to good reviews.
Denver and the road to New York: Future unknown. Best guess that it was eaten for breakfast by the East Coast critics.
Does this sound disastrous? It is, and that's unfortunate. The real-life saga/trauma of Carol Channing and Mary Martin in James Kirkwood's newest comedy, Legends!, is not a very pleasant story to report--but the play itself is worse.
James Kirkwood. Here's a man who grew up with show business parents, played as an actor himself, later co-wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book of the biggest musical about show business in modern memory (A Chorus Line)…not to mention numerous other achievements in fiction writing, such as Good Times/Bad Times and P.S. Your Cat is Dead. The problem with his present piece is horrifyingly simple. Receiving fewer laughs than a funeral, this comedy digs its own grave by showing us the stars' capability in a few tiny, odd, brilliant moments and expects this to suffice. But with the stars he's holding, his script has got to be brilliant or, at the very least, clever all of the time.
Mr. Kirkwood's plot brings together two legendary ladies who, we're told, regard each other with undying contempt but have been asked to do the unthinkable: co-star in a play. The theatergoer never understands exactly what it was the one star ever did to the other, though the information would perhaps be helpful. An assortment of one-liners about one being a "slut" and the other being rather a prude are bantered about. This star stole that star's husband, and so forth, but it doesn't seem to matter to either very much. There is no core to their rivalry, you see. Could it be they really like each other? Yes, you smell a fable in the making.
In the course of the comedy, the legendary ladies of the theater are forced to blatantly state
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