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re: Of course not...

Posted by: JohnDunlop 11:39 am EDT 08/08/14
In reply to: Of course not... - ryhog 11:18 am EDT 08/08/14

I agree. Lynn Fontanne was a decade younger when Lynn and Alfred Lunt starred in the play on Broasway in the late 1950s.


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re: Of course not...

Posted by: AlanScott 04:15 pm EDT 08/08/14
In reply to: re: Of course not... - JohnDunlop 11:39 am EDT 08/08/14

And during that run, Lunt missed a performance for what was supposedly the first and only time in his career. But a sense that their physical and mental powers were perhaps starting to go may be why it was their swan song, despite periodic announcements that they might be coming back in something or other (including, most surprisingly, a musical version of The Madwoman of Chaillot, with a score by Sondheim, book by Behrman, and directed by Fosse).

They were also sought for A Delicate Balance and were tempted by it and even said that they wanted to do it, but they would have to do it in London first.

Anyway, I went off topic, as I so often do. ;)


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re: Of course not...

Posted by: LegitOnce 10:50 am EDT 08/09/14
In reply to: re: Of course not... - AlanScott 04:15 pm EDT 08/08/14

There's a story about the closing night of The Visit on Broadway. Lynn Fontanne is waiting in the wings before the curtain and she says, "I am so exhausted my lips are trembling. I honestly think I cannot go on."

Now, Miss Fontanne was not one to dither. If she said she didn't think she could play, she must have been very near physical collapse.

It might have been possible for the Lunts to have returned to the stage in a light, undemanding comedy for a limited run, but perhaps that kind of project didn't seem attractive to them at that point. Maybe given their great intelligence about the theater, they realized that such a show would be anticlimactic after The Visit and so they took their time looking for a new vehicle. By the time something as attractive as A Delicate Balance came along, Lunt's health had gone from bad to worse, and it could be that they just didn't want to risk it. (Meanwhile, they did several television projects, so they didn't immediately retire.)


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re: Of course not...

Posted by: AlanScott 10:01 pm EDT 08/09/14
In reply to: re: Of course not... - LegitOnce 10:50 am EDT 08/09/14

The story you mention is told in Jared Brown's bio of the Lunts, and he says it occurred on closing night of the London run. I don't see the story in Margot Peters's bio of the Lunts, but perhaps I'm missing it.

Just for the sake of others who may be reading: After the Broadway run, there was a break of nearly ten months. But the break seems not to have been because the Lunts requested a break (certainly not such a long one), but because the producers were fearful that it would not do well on the road.

According to Brown's book, the Lunts (and the rest of the cast) were puzzled when the Broadway production closed as it was still selling out. They all wanted to continue.

Still, it did go out on the road for six months, then returned to New York for two weeks at City Center. It closed at City Center on March 20, 1960, then opened in London on June 23. A scheduled eight-week engagement was extended to 20.

In the Peters bio, she quotes from an interview that Lewis Funke did with them during the Broadway run in which Alfred talked about how exhausted he was and Lynn jumped in with "That isn't true."

Re the later television work: Together they did The Magnificent Yankee in 1965. Lynn did The Old Lady Shows Her Medals in 1963, but Alfred was just the host on that. Lynn also did Anastasia in 1967 with Julie Harris. So while she acted in several productions on television after The Visit, he really only did one. Their television appearance in The Great Sebastians had preceded The Visit.

There were several attempts between 1960 and 1967 to arrange for them to do The Visit on television, but it never worked out.


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re: Of course not...

Posted by: LegitOnce 03:30 am EDT 08/10/14
In reply to: re: Of course not... - AlanScott 10:01 pm EDT 08/09/14

You're right, I'm sure: I don't have the Brown bio handy, and I think I was confused because the Lunts played the show first on tour in the UK, then took it to the US before returning to London. I misremembered this more simply as UK/London followed by Broadway.

The Brown book does mention, I'm sure, that Lunt was not well during the New York run. It's possible (though it's just a guess) that he was trying to soft-pedal his illness in the Funke interview by calling it "exhaustion."

Not having a document of the Lunts in The Visit is a real heartbreaker. The MGM film of The Guardsman demonstrates how crisp and modern they were in playing high comedy, and the video of The Great Sebastians gives some indication of their star quality and charm. But they were great emotional actors too, and there's little sense of that in this light material.


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re: Of course not...

Posted by: writerkev 01:14 pm EDT 08/08/14
In reply to: re: Of course not... - JohnDunlop 11:39 am EDT 08/08/14

The last Broadway revival of the play had Jane Alexander in her early 50s.


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