So, while I'm crabby, let me tell you about seeing that original production of The Human Comedy, which I saw at in early 1984 at the Public Theater. I had a friend, no longer with us, in the cast. It had some good performers - Rex Smith, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Joe Kolinski - and a particularly inept on from Gordon Connell. It remains one of the worst things I've ever seen. The band was too large for the space, and I swear those damned trumpets never stopped shrieking at the top of their range. I remember a particularly awful number between Gordon Connell and Stephen Geoffreys. I cannot remember who choreographed, but the direction was by Wilford Leach, whose Pirates of Penzance was a huge success. I am not a fan of the maudlin writings of Saroyan, and the book did little to tone down that element. It was a noisy, inept rendition of paddlin' maudlin home.
