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Circle in the Square Theatre: A Comprehensive History

2022; Penn State University Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/eugeoneirevi.43.1.0095

2161-4318

Anne Fletcher,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

Circle in the Square Theatre: A Comprehensive History culminates four decades of research and distills material covered in Sheila Hickey Garvey's 600-plus-page 1984 dissertation, “Not for Profit: The History of the Circle in the Square Theatre.” Smooth transitioning from the clinical style of a lengthy dissertation to an engaging monograph is always a bit tricky and is perhaps more so in a study of a company—or at least a producing entity—that has remained operational, with few and brief interruptions, for some seventy years. Garvey expanded her original study to include vital material from 1984 to 2020. Selectivity and organization were key to this adaptation, and, while some may miss lengthy discussion of particular productions (e.g., George C. Scott's performance in Death of a Salesman [1975]), the author focuses on the Circle's productions of plays by Eugene O'Neill to create a “clear spine” (5). She might have been a bit more explicit in establishing her conceptual framework, but it becomes apparent as the Circle's story unfurls.Garvey was a student at the Circle in the Square Theatre School from 1973 to 1975 and continued to attend numerous productions and events at the theater for years to come. Longtime Circle in the Square producing director and later Broadway producer (most recently Hadestown) Paul Libin offered Garvey carte blanche access to the company archives—now housed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center—for her dissertation research. Of equal importance is Libin's ongoing friendship with Garvey through all stages of the book's development to its final fruition. Garvey's first-person research (informal conversations, formal interviews, and observations) melds with dogged and thorough traditional archival work to warrant the “comprehensive” in the book's subtitle. No doubt Circle in the Square Theatre will be turned to as the definitive study for decades to come. It joins the ranks of “go to” monographs on seminal US theater companies, such as Wendy Smith's Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre 1931–1940 (1990) and others.After her introduction, Garvey presents material in two parts (“The Off-Broadway Years” and “The Broadway Years”), arranged chronologically across twenty-three chapters. Circle in the Square Theatre weaves together stories of the company and its production history—the careers, friendships, and “falling outs” of principal players Ted Mann, José Quintero, and Paul Libin; the famous actors who graced the Circle and repeatedly returned to the theater across their careers, including Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, George C. Scott, and James Earl Jones; and the interrelationships between the Circle's challenges and those of other companies (under the overarching umbrella of tension between the commercial and the artistic)—all unified by recurring productions of plays by O'Neill. Threading the needle of converging yet separate tales is no small feat, and by and large Garvey succeeds by setting guideposts along the way. Segues from chapter to chapter deftly remind the reader of where they have been, chronologically, and forecast what they will next explore.One particularly clever extended marker of the passage of time and change lies in the description of different instances when famous O'Neill critics, producers, actors, and afficionados gathered to dedicate a plaque at the playwright's birthplace. This trope is introduced early (7–9) and establishes the gravitas of the O'Neill connection across the lives of participants in the Circle's evolution. Without question, Garvey's explication of the O'Neill Renaissance precipitated by Circle in the Square should be of acute interest to O'Neill scholars. Mann and Quintero's successful production of The Iceman Cometh in 1956 convinced Carlotta Monterey O'Neill to grant that team production rights to mount the Broadway premiere of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Together, these two friends and collaborators changed the course of theater in the United States.Their relationship was not without conflict, however. Mann continually coped with Quintero's disengagement from the business side of the Circle, while Quintero harbored resentments about the decisions Mann felt forced to make in his partner's absence. Nonetheless, Quintero remains inextricably linked to Circle in the Square: his mercurial directorial rise (and fall) and his overall reputation are forever a reflection of the company, whether he was working there or not. In fact, he left the Circle remarkably early (1963) in the company's history. Behind the scenes, Mann's struggles remained less visible than the charismatic and vocal Quintero's battles with colleagues; his desire for an artistic legacy; and his alcoholism, recovery, and subsequent ill health. Garvey's access to the Circle's extensive archive enables her to weigh details on Mann's daily operation of the theater against the more public version of the story often told by Quintero.Garvey provides closure to rumors of the feud between the Circle's founders. She paints a touching yet realistic portrait of the reunion when Quintero returned to teach at the Circle's school and later of Mann's bedside card-game vigils as Quintero lay dying. She reveals Jason Robards's long-standing loyalty to Quintero as well as the devotion that Colleen Dewhurst and George C. Scott retained toward the company long after their fondness for each other had waned. Garvey avoids a gossipy approach in her reflections on these and other very human and complex relationships. Rather, she illuminates shared artistic goals that transcended personal conflicts.Garvey points to the Circle's acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke (1952) and Brooks Atkinson's review as the launching of Off Broadway as a serious alternative to uptown productions. She addresses ways in which, in its early years, the Circle circumvented city ordinances such as fire codes that were often enforced to close Off and Off–Off Broadway producing venues (see, for example, Stephen J. Bottoms, Playing Underground: A Critical History of the Off–Off Broadway Movement [2006]). Later, after the theater moved from Sheridan Square to Fiftieth Street, the author positions Circle in the Square's struggles within the context of the overall New York theater scene. She compares the Circle's position as a nonprofit agency on Broadway to the disenchantment of José Quintero and other directors and actors with Lincoln Center's operation and with problems at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre, which faced constant budgetary issues despite financial support from the blockbuster A Chorus Line. Garvey also traces the Circle's relationship to New York City real estate, communities, neighborhoods, and urban development from the grimy days in Greenwich Village to the recent Disneyfication of Broadway.The author occasionally repeats key facts and even complete phrases or sentences—mistakes the publisher's editorial staff might have alleviated. Another challenge the author acknowledges in her preface is how best to handle the massive amount of necessary and carefully documented data (e.g., box office receipts, expenditures, lengths of runs), which are apt to interrupt narrative flow. Garvey's prose soars highest when she is less encumbered by numbers-driven detail and writes convincingly about the human interest and artistic sides of her overarching narrative.Among the unique contributions that Garvey makes are her careful analyses of Mann and Libin's close relationship (almost sixty years of partnership without a signed agreement) and of that team's unsung business prowess, as evident in productions off and on Broadway, touring productions, and various satellite enterprises. Managers who silently keep their organizations afloat, pivot to develop new box office strategies, and face financial crises with ingenuity are too often absent from published histories of a theater's success story. The grit and dedication of Mann and Libin come alive in the pages of Circle in the Square Theatre and broaden the book's scope by paying appropriate yet not maudlin homage to their backstage toil. Mann's methods for taking a show through a holiday ticket slump and the Circle's embrace of the limited run with possibilities for extension are but two of the innovations that Garvey considers. The focus on finance suggests that the book, or sections of it, could be read as case studies by students of arts management—a rather unusual position for a theater history text.Additionally, Garvey's professional stage experience as an actress and director allows her clearly to explain the Circle's architecture and the challenges that arose from the theater's signature configuration. She presents the audience/stage dialectic created by arena stages and includes detailed, thick descriptions of many productions through the years. She pays particular attention to those of scenic designer Davis Hays, who created not only the iconic set for Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Helen Hayes Theatre, but also designed, at the Circle, Cradle Song, The Iceman Cometh, Children of Darkness, The Quare Fellow, The Balcony, Desire Under the Elms, and Marco Millions (with Quintero at Lincoln Center), and, on Broadway, Hughie at the Royale and Strange Interlude (with Quintero) at the Martin Beck.Students and scholars interested in the history of American scenography might pair a reading of Circle in the Square Theatre with Hays's self-reflexive Setting the Stage: What We Do, How We Do It, and Why (2017). For aspiring directors and producers, Garvey's history pairs nicely with Ted Mann's Journeys in the Night: Creating a New American Theatre with Circle in the Square (2007), José Quintero's autobiography If You Don't Dance They Beat You (1974), and Quintero Directs O'Neill (1991), by Edwin J. McDonough.Garvey's scholarly apparatus includes a complete list of Circle in the Square productions. A formidable bibliography ranges from well-established texts to personal interviews and likely never-before-cited archival materials. One might quibble with a chapter-by-chapter arrangement that results in unnecessary repetition (e.g., the Gelbs's O'Neill), but the vital information that the bibliography tabulates will benefit future generations of scholars. Minor flaws notwithstanding, Circle in the Square Theatre takes good advantage of its forty-year gestation to deliver detailed coverage of the company and document its place in US theater history.