Journeys in the Night: Creating a New American Theatre with Circle in the Square: A Memoir [With DVD]

by Theodore Mann

Book Overview

This is Theodore Mann's account of his own and the Circle's remarkable history. At times it's difficult to tell where the two diverge, so integral to the company has he been. From Thornton Wilder to Al Pacino, it seems as if every great actor and playwright of the past fifty years has had his or her best work at Circle. As befits a story about theatre, it is at times comic and at times tragic.

If you ever wondered how Off-Broadway ever came...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1557836450
• ISBN13: 9781557836458
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Applause Books
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

So far no one has mentioned the DVD included!

I only had the opportunity to see one play at the original Circle In The Square Theater in the Village but we were charter subscribers when they moved uptown. I remember seeing Irene Pappas in "Medea" and James Earl Jones in "The Iceman Cometh" to name just a few. Four times a year we'd take the train into Manhattan to be engaged by some of the best talent in the theater world performing classics we knew and others we didn't. Like the prior reviewer, I found this book fascination but - to me - the real bonus was the DVD that is included in the back of the book. Taken from a series produced for use in schools in 1975 - for the 25th Anniversary of the CITS - the 90 minute presentation consists of five segments of both interviews with Ted Mann and some celebrated actors (Dustin Hoffman, George C. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, Paul Rudd, James Earl Jones, and Vanessa Redgrave) as well as brief scenes from plays these artists performed on the CITS stage. The interviews ask about how each actor started and more specifically about their years on the stage. The print is acceptable and - during the interview with Mann there is an annoying red "bleed" beside his face. Long before James Lipton started his "In Side The Actor's Studio" show this document was recorded. It is as fascinating as anything Lipton ever did (without the fawning over his guests). If you need further encouragement to get this book, let the DVD convince you. Steve Ramm "Anything Phonographic"

The O'Neill Connection

I haven't worked out yet exactly how old Theodore Mann must be, but he must be one of the oldest people I have ever read an autobiography by. Nearly everyone he knows from the glory days of the Circle in the Square is dead, so he must feel pretty much free to give his own version of the events that changed American theater and the reputation of Eugene O'Neill. Teddy Mann (or as George C Scott habitually called him, "Teedy,") was there and laid the groundwork, right at a time when O'Neill was a drug on the market and his last Broadway play, THE ICEMAN COMETH, had been a notable flop. Mann and his friend Jose Quintero stepped up, met Carlotta Monterey, fielded all the flak from naysayers, and put on triumphant productions of ICEMAN (with Jason Robards) and other O'Neill plays. Eventually they talked Carlotta (the widow O'Neill) into giving them the rights to stage US premieres for several of O'Neill's then unpublished plays, including LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, HUGHIE, and MORE STATELY MANSIONS. Theodore Mann saved the day when Florence Eldridge, creating the important role of Mary Tyrone, fell sick on the eve of the opening. He enlisted the famous Dr. Feelgood, Max Jacobson, to step in with an enormous suitcase filled with syringes and soon brought her up to fighting speed. He's filled with great stories like that about half-forgotten people. Why, there was even another Paul Rudd, not the actor of today, but another one back in the 1970s, whom Mann discovered. What's up with that? The two Paul Rudds look crazy different from another, and I have to say, the present day one is far better looking. He also describes the love affair between Amy Irving and Rex Harrison in piquant terms, I'd like to see a whole docudrama about the interaction between ingenue and old man. Despite continual rumors, Teedy and Quintero were never lovers, just friends from Woodstock. Indeed Theodore Mann's theater is pretty much a straight theater, with plenty of couples and lots of children. He discovered both Rip Torn and Geraldine Page and gave early work to trailblazers like Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave. The Circle in the Square had a long history of reviving forgotten plays and renewing interest in dormant careers, like George C. Scott's 1983 production of Noel Coward's PRESENT LAUGHTER, which showed the world that the man who played General Patton could also play Garry Essendine.

Journeys in the Night: Creating a New American Theatre with Circle in the Square: A Memoir

This book was well written and includes many significant and intimate stories about the start of the American theatre and Eugene O'Neill. There are many short and interesting stories about the acting giants in American theatre. Did you know that Director Jose Quintero met Ted Mann in Woodstock, and that is where the revival of O'Neill plays began?

The greats

This is such a wonderful book in the way it reviews a spectacular time in history. Some legendary actors got their start at the Circle in the Square such as Dustin Hoffman, George C. Scott, Al Pacino and many more. This theatre has been the behind the American theatre as we know it and this book tells the stories of the Circle in the Square and Theodore Mann, a driving force.