Weekend

"Unlike nature, the American public adores a vacuum," says a character in Weekend. The thesis will certainly be tested by the fate of Gore Vidal's new Broadway comedy about a presidential hopeful. Vidal is capable of springy, sophisticated political humor, as he demonstrated in The Best Man (1960); but this time the jokes are either juvenile or senile. Most of the characters are as appealing as wads of wet Kleenex, and the story line is about as amusing as the Congressional Record.

Senator MacGruder (John Forsythe) is a man who has everything except the presidency. He is handsome and monied. He has an elegant, tactful wife (Rosemary Murphy). He has a vivacious and loyal secretary-mistress (Kim Hunter). To such a man, some reign must fall, preceded, of course, by the Republican nomination. After some utterly predictable L.B.J. baiting, Nixon knocking, and Reagan ribbing, a flea splashes into the Senator's political ointment.

It is his son Beany (Marco St. John), a free spirit who sponges on Daddy for the cost of living. Beany is a dove on Viet Nam, and he has brought home a Negro sweetie (Carol Cole) to wed. In short, the boy is a one-man international drawing-room crisis. Vidal's cute switch ploy on the miscegenation problem is to present the girl's parents as prim, upper-middle-class social conservatives who are adamantly opposed to an interracial match. They dread what their Westchester County neighbors might say, and cringe at the notoriety of having their daughter's picture appear in Ebony.

After a poll shows that he will capture 61% of the city vote if he accedes to the interracial match, the Senator bestows his blessing on the couple. By and large, the performers act depressed by the lines they mouth, although perky Carol Cole--daughter of the late Nat King Cole, making her Broadway debut --looks much nicer than the play she is in.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.