Annual Report

Broadway could look back upon a not very tidy but far from untalented season. Indeed, 1948-49 had its genuine high points--even moments when it did not seem like Broadway. Shifting and swerving, it was a season, to misquote the old limerick, that ran like a bus, not a tram.

It began drably. Well into November the best that Broadway could offer was such a mere second helping as Life with Mother, such hokum-with-cream as Edward, My Son. After that, the season got color in its cheeks, feathers in its cap. At award time, there were no surprise winners: Death of a Salesman had been as excitedly received as any new drama in years, South Pacific saluted with adjectives that rarely come a musical's way.

In both cases, adjectives a size or two smaller might have proved a far better fit; or a distinction should have been made between the production and the show. For even more dazzling phenomena than Salesman and South Pacific themselves were the men who staged them: Elia Kazan and Joshua Logan. Director Logan, with an unbroken string of hits (Annie Get Your Gun, Happy Birthday, John Loves Mary, Mister Roberts, South Pacific) was easily Broadway's cleverest theater mind; Director Kazan, with three successive Critics' Circle awards (All My Sons, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman) stood forth as more truly perceptive, and accordingly stood first.

It was a season when the public snubbed the critics. Despite a strong press, Life with Mother and The Traitor flopped financially; despite a badly mixed press, Where's Charley? and Jean Giraudoux's enchanting Madwoman of Chaillot flourished. Musically, 1948-49 could point with pride to Kiss Me, Kate as well as South Pacific; but, to only one enjoyable revue, Lend an Ear. It was a season when the mourners' bench was lined with Tennessee Williams, Clifford Odets, John van Druten, Kaufman & Ferber, Garson Kanin, Marc Connelly.

The classics, except for Richard HI, stayed primly on the shelf. The experiments never got off the side streets. Box office was inclined to be moody. Hollywood had not been so tightfisted about Broadway in years: its most sizable purchase was Home of the Brave for $25,000.

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