Larry Parks' Day in Court

Eric Russell Bentley (September 14, 1916 – August 5, 2020) was a British-born American theater critic, playwright , singer, editor, and translator. In 1998, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. He was also a member of the New York Theater Hall of Fame, recognizing his many years of cabaret performances. He wrote numerous books of theatre criticism. In addition, he edited The Importance of Scrutiny (1964), a collection from Scrutiny: A Quarterly Review and Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938–1968 (1971). His most-produced play, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been: The Investigations of Show-Business by the Un-American Activities Committee 1947–1958 (1972), was based on the transcripts from the House Un-American Activities Committee collected in Thirty Years of Treason Our current offering is taken from this  publication. Beginning in 1953, he taught at Columbia University and was a theatre critic for The New Republic. He became known for his blunt style of theatre criticism, and was threatened with lawsuits from both Tennessee Williams and Athur Miller for his unfavorable reviews of their work. From 1960 to 1961, Bentley was the Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University. Bentley was one of the preeminent experts on Bertolt Brecht , whom he met at the University of California , Los Angeles as a young man and whose work he translated extensively. He edited the Grove Press  issue of Brecht’s work, and recorded two albums of Brecht’s songs for Folkways Records, most of which had never before been recorded in English. His play The Red, White, and Black was produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in 1971 in collaboration with the Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Division. Beginning in 1975, Andrei Serban directed multiple productions of Bentley’s translation of Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan at La Ma Ma, with music by Elizabeth Swados .  Bentley was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences in 1969.In an interview in The New York Times  on November 12, 2006, he said he was married twice before coming out at age 53, at which time he left his position as the Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia to concentrate on his writing. He cited his homosexuality as an influence on his theater work, especially his play Lord Alfred’s Lover, based on the life of Oscar Wilde. He won an Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre from the American Theatre Wing in 2006 and a Robert Chesley Award in 2007. Bentley became an American citizen in 1948 and had been living in New York City for many years at the time of his death.  Bentley died at his home in Manhattan on August 5, 2020, at the age of 103. Larry Parks’ Day in Court, by Eric Bentley (Playing time: 59:05)<br /> Starring Dan Gunther, William Smithers, Don Stewart,  Stan Glen,  David Brainard, Richard Hoag, Tony Miratti, David Newton,  Braden McKinley and John Strawn, (Actual transcript of the film star’s 1951 appearance  before the House Un-American Activities Committee) The post Larry Parks’ Day in Court appeared first on SANTA BARBARA THEATRE OF THE AIR.