The New Broadway Season Falls Into Place : The talk of the town from ‘Spoils of War’ to ‘Rumors’ to ‘Godot’

The old idea on Broadway was to open as early as possible in the fall, so as to get a running start on the new season. The new idea is to open as late in the spring as possible, so as to be fresh in the minds of the Tony Award voters.

So you can count on one hand the number of new Broadway shows so far this fall. “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” is back, at the Ambassador--a great show, but not exactly a new one. Ditto with “The Doctor’s Dilemma” at Circle-in-the-Square.

Still, the season is creaking into gear. Kate Nelligan, for example, has received glorious notices in a new play by Michael Weller, “Spoils of War.” The noise level at the Music Box the other Wednesday afternoon said that the audience couldn’t wait to see her.

The noise level increased by several decibels when the audience noticed a little slip of paper in the program. “At this performance, the role of Elise, usually played by Kate Nelligan, will be played by Laurie Kennedy.” Are they kidding? After we’ve come all the way from White Plains? Come on, Lois, let’s get our money back.

They got it back, too. Immediately. A Los Angeles visitor couldn’t help comparing what happened when Frank Langella wasn’t able to go on in “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” recently at the Ahmanson Theatre. Patrons who wanted their money back were told that it was the Ahmanson’s policy to issue exchange tickets only.

Broadway box offices know better than to try that. And Broadway management wouldn’t dare throw on an understudy with a script in his hand when the star gets sick. Once order had been restored at the Music Box, understudy Laurie Kennedy came out and gave a thoroughly prepared performance in Nelligan’s stead--not only a prepared performance, but a considered one.

Unfortunately it’s a hopeless play. It sometimes happens that a good playwright as Weller is, will make it to Broadway with his junkiest script. That’s “The Spoils of War,” a throwback to the kind of vehicle that used to be cranked out in the 1940s for stars like Gertrude Lawrence and Katherine Cornell.

The story would be built around an alluring but thoroughly nice woman in her 40s who still had to beat her suitors off with a club, poor darlings. There would be a tough-talking maid or best friend, and there would be a sensitive, smitten young man, as in “Candida.”

In Weller’s version, set in the mid 1950s, the heroine is an ex-radical who can’t get her life together but has a marvelous appetite for living; her confidante (Alice Pleyten) is a former colleague in the movement who know that the heroine exploits people, but can’t stay angry at her; and the young man is the heroine’s teen-age son (Christopher Collet), anxiously trying to get his ex-radical parents together again (Jeffrey DeMunn is the father) while being somewhat attracted to Mom himself.

She returns the interest, as part of her marvelous appetite for life. This leads to a moment of almost-incest, which the matinee crowd at the Music Box didn’t take very seriously, having accurately written off the story at intermission as pure soap opera. I told you we should have gone with Lois and Bobbi.

The preview audience at the Broadhurst loved “Rumors,” Neil Simon’s 897th play and first farce. The Los Angeles viewer had seen the show in San Diego, and had heard that Simon had made big changes in the script. All but the most necessary one: finding a reason to justify his characters’ running around as if the sky had fallen.

“Rumors” asks us to believe that a houseparty of hard-core New Yorkers (including three attorneys) would be thrown into utter panic by a friend’s attempted suicide. What if the police should involve them ? Since there’s no reason to bring in the police, and since the friends haven’t done anything wrong that we know of (the play would be a lot more fun if they had), their concern seems ultra far-fetched.

So do some of Simon’s lines. “Where are you going?” “To the john.” “Didn’t you just go?” “Yes, but not enough.” Actually, that has a kind of logic to it. Other exchanges don’t make any sense at all when examined--which is why director Gene Saks encourages Ron Leibman, Christine Baranski and the rest of his frantic, skillful cast to keep going , no matter what.

The preview audience at the Broadhurst accepted velocity as hilarity, however, and that’s likely to be true for regular audiences as well now that “Rumors” has opened (to mixed reviews). Simon has built up a Triple-A credit rating with Broadway audiences over the years. If a line in a Simon play only sounds funny, they’ll buy it.

But the visitor left the Broadhurst thinking of the great line that Simon gave Maureen Stapleton in “Plaza Suite” at this same theater. “ Everybody cheats with their secretary! From my husband, I expect more!”

Broadway did see a genuine theater event this month, if the Lincoln Center Theatre counts as Broadway--and these days it does. This was Mike Nichols’ production of “Waiting for Godot,” downstairs at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre.

Not only was this an event, it was a cause celebre. The stars were Robin Williams and Steve Martin. The theater seated fewer than 300 people. The run (closing tonight) was limited to seven weeks, most of them given to previews.

What chutzpah. Most of the theater’s subscribers couldn’t even get in. The night I attended, some 50 people were lined up on the sidewalk, some of them having been there since 7 a.m. What were they doing? Waiting for “Waiting for Godot.”

It was worth the wait. This is by no means a definitive “Godot,” but was Bert Lahr’s? One could even argue that as an existentialist play--in fact, the existentialist play--”Godot” can’t be given a definitive performance. It takes its definition from its circumstances.

In the late ‘80s, we can see Vladimir (Martin) and Estragon (Williams) as examples of our newest minority, the homeless. But they are a lot less discouraged than most of the people we see on the streets.

Where previous “Godots” have suggested that it’s agony to keep standing around in a void trying to think of something to say to a partner as uneasy as himself, this “Godot” suggests that two people can fill the time between dawn and dusk quite amusingly, if they work at it.

Where previous “Godots” have suggested that there’s something pitiful in the way that people keep drudging away at their daily routines, hoping that something better will turn up tomorrow, Nichols’ production suggests that maybe tomorrow will be better--you never know.

Even the waiting isn’t too bad. Martin and Williams bicker a lot, but clearly enjoy each other’s company--who else would have their routines down pat? They do their falls, abuse each other, part forever, rush back into each other’s arms and it’s all in a day’s play.

There’s no dread in this “Godot.” You don’t miss it in regard to the two tramps. You do in regard to the other couple in the play, Pozzo (F. Murray Abraham) and his slave, Lucky (Bill Irwin.) They ought to come lurching out of quite another psychic landscape, crackling with fire and brimstone, but they’re not much more vivid than our tramps.

So it’s not a “Godot” for all seasons. But it’s the best thing that Broadway has seen this season. What’s the next big event? “Legs Diamond” with Peter Allen--which has put off its opening until Christmas, although it’s already doing previews. Not a hopeful sign.