Loeb 1961 Production Of 'A Man Is A Man' Wins N.Y. Praise

John Hancock '61, leading director at Harvard for two years, opened Bertolt Brecht's A Man's A Man off-Broadway Sept. 19, and received good reviews from New York critics. He directed a similar version of the play at the Loeb in August 1961.

Hancock's production opened in New York one day after the well-established Living Theater (Connection) opened Man Is Man, also based on Brecht's play. The Herald Tribune called Hanoock's version "sound in wind and limb and ear and eye...serving not only Brecht but off- Broadway as well." The Living Theatre version was critialzed as a "flailing work, possessed neither of a design of its own nor, it is to be hoped, of Brecht's."

Hancock described his New York show by phone yesterday as similar to Loeb version in sets, music, and general techniques, although the New York production had to be adapted to a smaller theater. He called his experience at the Loeb valuable because "we could experiment until we found what the audience liked, and adjust the script accordingly."

Hancock based his production on Brecht's original text written in the 1920's and adapted by Eric Bentley. Howard Taubman of the Times noted that "his (Bentley's) English accomplishes the feat of making Brecht seem at home among us."

Taubman observed that "under John Hancock's direction this production approaches the manner and mood of the Brecht Theater in East Berlin." The Hancock version is "tougher in texture, lighter in construction and more focused on dramatic drive than the Living Theater version."

Brecht's sardonic point emerges with ferocious bitterness when the framework of theatrical hocus-pocus is followed firmly and thoroughly," Taubman summarized.