Estelle Parsons' Weird Semi-Exit from The Conners

Laurie Metcalf and Estelle Parsons 
in The Conners

Episode 3 of Season 6 of The Conners (aired Feb. 21) featured a weird semi-exit from the series for 96-year-old Estelle Parsons. Her character Bev (mother of the late Roseanne and her sister Jackie) was on an experimental drug trial that improved her cognitive functions, lessened her dementia and brightened her mood. In this new state of being, Bev proposes she and Jackie (the brilliant Laurie Metcalf) spend a day together in Chicago for some long overdue mother-daughter bonding. 

At Union Station in the Windy City, Bev reveals she plans to go on a "great adventure" while she still has her wits about her and to board a train headed eastwards. She has no specific destination in mind and only one small bag of her belongings. She hugs Jackie and apologizes for her belittling behavior. (She wanted to have one perfect day with her daughter before losing her mind.) Jackie protests but lets her go. If only real life could be this simple--letting your nearly century-old mother on a train with no clear plan or means of support. You say goodbye and go on about your life.

Theater Memories Part 3: Pre-Broadway Try-Outs

Patricia Routledge and Ken Howard
in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Now that we have done summer stock and national tours, how about pre-Broadway tours or out-of-town try-outs. Philadelphia used to be a major stop on the road to Broadway, but by the 1980s, the process became too expensive and most shows came from regional productions or were workshopped before opening in NYC (Michael Bennett pioneered the workshop process with A Chorus Line and Dreamgirls.)

Here are the pre-Broadway try-outs I remember seeing in Philly in the 1970s (most of the them big bombs): Who's Who in Hell written by and starring Peter Ustinov with George S. Irving, Beau Bridges, Olympia Dukakis, and Joseph Maher (a Shavian comedy set in the afterlife with Ustinov as a Soviet premiere, Irving as a Nixon-like US president, and Bridges as the assassin who killed them both, I enjoyed it and I thought it got a bum rap); Broadway Broadway by Terrence McNally with James Coco, Geraldine Page and Lenny Baker, Robert Drivas directs (I saw this just before leaving for college in 1977, it closed out of town, later rewritten as It's Only a Play and much more successful); The Prince of Grand Street with Robert Preston miscast as an aging Yiddish theater star, Sam Levene and Werner Klemperer were also in the cast; Alice, a musical based on Alice in Wonderland with Debbie Allen, Alice Ghostley, Cleavant Derricks, Hamilton Camp (Mike Nichols produced this attempt to cash in on The Wiz and Annie, but it closed in Philly); A Matter of Gravity by Enid Bagnold with Katharine Hepburn and Christopher Reeve (One of the few successful shows here, a light comedy and it was a thrill to see Hepburn on stage); 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the legendary bomb from Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner with Ken Howard and Patricia Routledge, it wasn't that bad (pictured); Ladies at the Alamo by Paul Zindel with Estelle Parsons and Eileen Heckart; Myrt and Phil again with Parsons and Michael Lombard, a terrible play about a miserable couple in crisis after the wife has a mastectomy; I Remember Mama by Richard Rodgers and Martin Charnin, Liv Ullman's only attempt at a Broadway musical. Ullman was a big star at that time due to her shattering performances in Ingmar Bergman films such as Face to Face, Persona, Shame, Scenes from a Marriage, etc. I only remember George Hearn as the father and George S. Irving as the irascible Uncle Chris, puffing on a cigar to show his anger.

More: Seascape with Deborah Kerr, Barry Nelson, Frank Langella, Maureen Anderman (Edward Albee's very weird play before it won the Pulitzer, Langella won the first of his three Tonys); Master Harold and the Boys with Zakes Mokae, Zeljko Ivanek; Sweet Bird of Youth with Irene Worth and Christopher Walken, probably one f the best performances of a Tennessee Williams play I've ever seen; Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding with Marybeth Hurt in the Julie Harris role, Glenn Close as the bride, and the kid who played Ted Knight and Georgia Engel's adopted son on the Mary Tyler Moore Show (or at least it looked like him, I could be wrong) (I can't remember if this was pre or post-Broadway, but I will list it here.)

Irene Worth and Christopher Walken 
in Sweet Bird of Youth.

Peter Ustinov (playwright-star), 
Beau Bridges, and
George S. Irving in
Who's Who in Hell

Binge-Watching 'Roseanne'

The cast of Roseanne

Cable networks are discovering the benefits of the binge-viewing craze. Since Netflix and Amazon started making every episode of their original series like House of Cards available at once and people have been watching all of them in a weekend, other outlets found that viewers have no problem gobbling up multiple episodes of their favorite childhood sitcoms for hours. A prime example is provided by WE and Logo which are running repeats of Roseanne and Will and Grace in four-hour blocks. I didn't watch these shows as a kid. I was in my 20s and 30s when they first aired and I did not follow them like I did The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, and The Bob Newhart Show when I was in high school (when I wasn't in a play, I had nothing better to do at night). So it's fun to catch up with these shows.

B'way Update: Parsons and Spinella in 'Autumn'

Estelle Parsons and Stephen Spinella in The Velocity of Autumn at Arena Stage
Credit: Teresa Wood

The long-delayed production of The Velocity of Autumn is finally coming to Broadway. The two-character play by Eric Coble about an elderly woman threatening to blow up her Brooklyn brownstone if she can't stay there, has been on the "upcoming" list for what seems like decades now. Estelle Parsons and Stephen Spinella will repeat their performances from the original Arena Stage, Washington DC production when the show begins previews at the Booth Theater (currently home to The Glass Menagerie) on April 1 in advance of an April 21 opening. Spinella plays her son who tries to negotiate with her not to light the match. BTW, Spinella will be appearing the CSC production of Brecht's A Man's a Man opening Jan. 30 for a limited run through Feb. 16. Parsons leaps to the head of the list of frontrunners for the Best Actress in a Play Tony since she is 86 and has never won one before, though she's been nominated four times (The Seven Descents of Myrtle, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Miss Margarida's Way, Morning's at Seven.) Her biggest competition are two other "mothers": Tyne Daly in Mothers and Sons and Diahann Carroll in A Raisin in the Sun.That means the only announced Broadway show without a theater is The Realistic Joneses which will probably go into the Cort once Waiting for Godot/No Man's Land ends its limited run. So I updated the my Broadway/Off-Broadway calendar and added a few new shows: