Performing Arts

NEW YORK – It is generally not a good sign for a Broadway show when people leave the opening-night party early. That is what Arthur Bicknell noticed at the celebration for the premiere of his play. A friend finally approached with a report on the reviews.

Two words: "the worst."

Indeed they were. The play was Moose Murders, and even now, 25 years later, it is considered the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway flops are judged.

"Was it really that bad?" asked Mr. Bicknell, who now lives in Springfield, Mass., and is the chief publicist for Merriam-Webster. "The simple answer is yes."

Things weren't so grim at the L&M bowling lanes in Rochester, N.Y., on a recent Friday night, when a cast of nonprofessional actors had just finished a second performance of Moose Murders at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

The show, a staged reading but with original music, was put together by John Borek, 58, a self-described "part-time conceptual artist" who works by day as an aide to a city council member. The first performance was on Feb. 22, the 25th anniversary of the play's Broadway opening, and closing, night.

The next scheduled performance is Aug. 9. At Sardi's. It is all part of Mr. Borek's idea to pay homage to a play that has transcended its swift demise to become evocative shorthand in the theater world for anything that has gone tremendously wrong.

"Maybe Broadway had its chance, and they blew it," Mr. Borek said. "Maybe it will have a more receptive audience as a work of art."

It is certainly true that Broadway audiences were less than receptive.

"If your name is Arthur Bicknell – or anything like it – change it," declared Dennis Cunningham, the critic at the CBS affiliate in New York.

Critics described Moose Murders as "titanically bad" and "indescribably bad," a play that "would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas" (Brendan Gill, The New Yorker), that looked as if it were staged by "a blind director repeatedly kicked in the groin" (John Simon, New York magazine). The columnist Liz Smith had some nice things to say, Mr. Bicknell recalled.

Years later, Frank Rich, who was then the theater critic for The New York Times, would call it "the worst play I've ever seen on a Broadway stage." Mr. Rich's writings about Moose Murders have become such a part of its lore that a recent production of the play in Manila, Philippines, credited him with having written it.

The reviews, which were not helped by the man reeking of vomit who sat in the third row during a press preview, made the 14 performances of Moose Murders legendary in theater history. Cast members trumpet their involvement in Playbill biographies. The number of people who claim to have seen the show, at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, seems to have multiplied beyond physical possibility, like those who claim to have seen the Beatles at Shea Stadium.

The play, a mystery farce, relates the adventures of Joe Buffalo Dance, Snooks and Howie Keene, Nurse Dagmar, Stinky Holloway and others pulled together on one stormy night at the Wild Moose Lodge, where several murders take place, Stinky tries to sleep with his mother, and a man in a moose costume is assaulted by a bandage-wrapped quadriplegic.

Mr. Bicknell, who was 32 at the time, said he had become aware early that there were problems with the play, and the production.

The director, John Roach, was also a producer, and his wife was in the show. (Mr. Roach could not be tracked down for this story.) The leading lady, Eve Arden, was supposed to be making a comeback after more than 40 years away from Broadway, but she left after the first preview.

The actress Holland Taylor, eager to pay some bills, stepped in and within a week was performing onstage. Despite calling the production a "misshapen thing at an almost Shakespearean level," Ms. Taylor now says the experience taught her much about fortitude in the face of disaster.

"There were things that I put my foot down about and changed," she said in a telephone interview. "But there were things I couldn't change. Like the play."

Mr. Bicknell tried to move on but eventually gave up and worked for a few years as a literary agent. Someone tried to get permission to turn the play into a musical called Moose Murders: The Afterbirth, Mr. Bicknell said, but he was not ready for that.

Eventually he came to terms. "If you can't redeem, exploit," he said in a telephone interview. "You have to embrace it." He's now writing a book about the experience.

Campbell Robertson,

The New York Times

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