Tchin-Tchin

Wanna getta hiton B'way? Simple. Write one of those serio-comic-mystic-meaningless farces. How? Well, ecoutez.

Item, Plot: Choose something with what they call "wacky charm" (like, laughable English wife of American schnook hooks up with gruff Italian husband of American cutie, because schnook and cutie have already hooked themselves up, and English and Italian want to effect a decoupling, an' what happens but that they [Anglo-Italian] fall in love, an' decide to throw away all their money, an' get all happy and mystic and meaningless an' stuff).

Item, Dialogue: Make this up-to-the-minute and, preferably, "snappy" (oh, give the English woman some jokes about tea, the Italian a couple of gags about the construction business, although you should generally avoid the line "You're built like a brick," which has been overused, and give both of them as many filthy phrases as you can get away with).

Item, Cast: Just remember that every major role must be written with some specific star in mind (and that specific stars can always make your parts really weepy or funny, or whatever you say you're after).

Item, A Title: Usually a "catchy" drinking-hall phrase like Mud-in-your-eye, or Here's-looking-at-you-keed, or Wotcher.

Now you have a play. All you need for a hit are your specific stars, your director and your angel. Tchin-Tchin, which opened at the Wilbur Saturday night, and which means "Hello-Goodbye" in Hong Kong, has all three; and Tchin-Tchin will be the season's first hit-hit. All very simple, indeed.

Of course, that's just a mite unfair. Tchin-Tchin isn't quite so toheap as my prototype: its specific stars are Margaret Leighton and Anthony Quinn-Quinn; its director is Peter Glenville (who has directed Separate Tables and, more recently, Becket). And it also has two very funny scenes at the end of the first and second acts in which Margaret Leighton has, respectively, her first drink and the trembles.

Miss Leighton, it must be candidly admitted, is a joy to watch at any time, and she almost saves the show just by being in it. Progressively downer and outer, she is ever, as she tells us at the end of Act I when she exits, stoned, with her dress covering little of her back, "every inch a lady."

Then Mr. Quinn, a very talented man in his way, does his frantic best to make the show interesting: he growls and sticks his stomach and his eyebrows at everybody. He also has one good line: "I'm free," he announces triumphantly in the second act. "I've got that lousy free feeling." And there's another actor also who should be mentioned. He's Charles Grodin, a young man who plays the hopeless role of Miss Leighton's son--hopeless because the role is one of those zany parts that ordinarily crop up only in the less marketable plays of Blair Brown--and makes it quite memorable.

The staging, not yet wholly settled, is smooth enough and brisk enough; and the sets, gaudy and numerous, are the inspired work of Will Steven Armstrong.

But in spite of all that memorableness, there's an awful lot of fat on this double tchin. Sidney Michaels, its perpetrator, pretends to have "based" his work on a play by Francois Billetdoux (French for Frank Mashnote). Billetdoux did not confuse ambiguity with vagueness and confusion--something Michaels has very conveniently managed to do. The third act, in particular, is a mess. Leighton and Quinn have renounced their money (are completely destitute, in fact), have no place to go and nothing to do (they aren't even married), yet Michaels seems to think he has achieved some sort of brilliantly whimsical happy ending. Or perhaps he's honest enough to realize that the play should have ended one act sooner, when he had run out of ideas.

Yet, as noted, Michaels is bound to have a success on his hands, whatever it's worth. Do I think his success is worth very much? Not by the hair on your tchinny tchin-tchin.