William Goldman is a writer I greatly enjoy no matter the format. His novels, like Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, are sharp and funny, and his non-fiction books about his experiences in Hollywood are perceptive and appealingly acid-tongued. I’ve been circling The Season, Goldman’s look at the inner workings of Broadway, for a long time. Goldman spent the 1967-68 theater season following every new play that opened on Broadway, and even a few that didn’t. He wanted to know how the industry worked, and what could be done to fix it. The resulting book offers a panoramic overview, featuring insights from actors, composers, playwrights, directors, producers, theatergoers, ticket sellers, investors, critics, and more.
Goldman uses the plays as vehicles to discuss particular aspects of the industry. He is a frank, opinionated writer, who usually has a strong argument to back up his point of view. Early on, he comes for the New York theater critics with some harsh language. He saves his fiercest vitriol for Clive Barnes of the New York Times, whom he all but calls out for incompetence. It’s harsh, but Goldman has receipts: he quotes several of Barnes reviews, pointing out faulty assumptions, factual inaccuracies, and irrelevant asides that detract from his reviews. Goldman seems resentful of the power that critics, especially Barnes, can have over a play’s success and the financial wherewithal of the people involved with the show.
Goldman is pessimistic about the shape Broadway is in. Perhaps that’s because he had to sit through so many poorly-conceived plays. He documents, with some sympathy, the many ways in which a play can go off the rails. From bad casting, to unruly stars, to disastrous out-of-town tryouts, it’s a miracle anything good manages to make it all the way to Broadway.
There are some troublesome sections of The Season, in which Goldman’s attitudes and references clearly date it to the late-60s. Goldman’s dissection of the problems with the industry includes his opinions on homosexuality. Goldman doesn’t seem to harbor much disdain for gay people, and his ultimate conclusion has more to do with how gay playwrights could write better if they were free to express themselves more fully, but his language is sometimes flippant and thoughtless to an extent that modern readers would be shocked.
Most readers would not be familiar with too many of the shows covered by Goldman, but there are many huge names all active on Broadway at the time. Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller debuted new plays during this time, as did younger playwrights like Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, and Neil Simon. Mike Nichols is still a wunderkind theater director, and actors like George C. Scott, Albert Finney, Sandy Dennis, and many others are all on stage at one point or another. As far as actual titles, Hair and Simon’s Plaza Suite are probably the most enduring.
Goldman isn’t shy about offering suggestions for how Broadway might be improved, and his final chapters are taken up with the results of a survey he commissioned to figure out why people were largely turning away from the theater. The economics of the industry are fascinating in that they are so different from those of today. Tickets are mostly $10 or less, basically an open invite for unscrupulous ticket brokers to sell far above face value. Producers seem far more trigger-happy to close their shows in Goldman’s day; many of the shows he covered lasted less than a week on Broadway, or never even opened at all.
Despite his occasionally outdated language and his bombast regarding his own opinions, Goldman still comes across as a canny observer of the scene, with plenty of insight for the theater fan of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.