‘BELLY OF THE BEAST’ GETS DIVIDED REVIEWS IN N.Y.

The Mark Taper Forum’s production of “In the Belly of the Beast” opened Thursday night in New York to divided reviews.

Mel Gussow of the New York Times found the evening “judicious” in its presentation of Jack Henry Abbott (Andrew Robinson) as both a victim and an agent of violence.

But--as opposed to Abbott’s book of the same title--Gussow felt “distanced from the firsthand trauma” of Abbott’s life. Actor Robinson, for Gussow, had “nervous intensity,” but not “imminent explosiveness.”

Yet on the strength of the material Gussow found the evening “a devastating indictment of a dehumanizing penal system.”

Sy Syna of the New York City Tribune had no reservations. He called it “the most electrifying production seen in New York in the last several seasons. Starkly designed and lit, with direction by Robert Woodruff as taut as a high-tension wire, and sparked by Andrew Robinson’s charged performance as Abbott, the show generates an almost unbearable dramatic voltage. . . .”

Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press was also impressed. “Theatrically compelling . . . . Robinson’s low-keyed, matter-of-fact performance is all the more unnerving because of the horrific subject matter. It’s impossible not to be affected by some of the more gruesome monologues. . . .”

Don Nelsen of the New York Daily News couldn’t get into the show. “The material is gut raw, vivid in image and capable of stirring an audience to anger, even rage. . . . Yet I sat there wondering when the fire was going to start. . . . Robinson came across as acting Abbott instead of being him.”

Likewise John Simon of New York magazine. He found Robinson’s performance “splendid,” but felt the play “not much help in illuminating the case’s real issues.” The New York Post’s Marilyn Stasio disagreed, finding it “a pointed and articulate production” that succeeded in shaking the viewer into thought.

Janice Berman of Newsday: “An indictment of a society that allows such a system (of violence) to exist. It is not the first such play, but surely it is among the most vivid.”

Sylvie Drake will have a first-hand report on “Belly of the Beast” in New York in Monday’s Times.

Peter Brook’s latest project since he brought “Carmen” to Lincoln Center was the talk of the Avignon Festival last month. It’s a nine-hour version of the Sanskrit classic, “Mahabharata,” a saga of a tribal feud that eventually threatens to destroy the planet.

“The scenes move at an exhilarating pace and the language is precise,” reports Thomas Quinn Curtiss in Variety. “The staging scheme is Shakespearean . . . quick with vitality and variety, now a tragic interlude, now a humorous incident, now barbaric horror. . . .”

Brook has been working on the project with translator Jean-Claude Carriere for a decade, and other cities are bound to see the work now that its shakedown cruise has gone so well.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK. Woody Allen: “80% of success is showing up.”