Theater: Boffo Nickleby

The prophets are confounded

Broadway congenitally hears more “voices” than Joan of Arc. Even before the Royal Shakespeare Company’s epic production of Nicholas Nickleby opened at the Plymouth Theater on Oct. 4 for a three-month run, the voices of Mammon and Cassandra could be heard muttering their dire prophecies along Shubert Alley. Mammon said that no sane person would pay the unprecedented price of $100 a ticket. Cassandra moaned that 8½ hours in a seated position, with only a one-hour dinner break, was a spartan rigor that no human frame could endure. (Agreed Socialite C.Z. Guest: “The only way I could sit still for that length of time would be on a horse.”)

Almost no one reckoned properly with two other voices, Thespis and the vox populi, or word of mouth. Thespis spoke in the golden tongues and skills of the R.S.C., which is the most formidable assemblage of actors in the English-speaking world. And the word of mouth? Ecstatic. By Nov. 2, the entire run was sold out. In the past few weeks, scalpers have reportedly commanded $170 per ticket, but practically speaking, tickets do not exist. Even for the insider’s insider, there are no strings left to be pulled. At one recent New York City-area funeral, a mourner’s first question about the deceased was “What about her Nicholas Nickleby ticket?” Bernard Jacobs, president of the Shubert Organization and one of the co-producers who footed the $4.4 million cost of importing the show from London (the others: Gerald Schoenfeld, Elizabeth McCann, Nelle Nugent and James Nederlander), estimates that it “lost $495,000 in the first four weeks, but right now it looks as if it will make a small profit—like $25,000.” ∎