Customer Reviews

Visit To A Small Planet

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I first saw this on stage in the late 1960s, with Leonard Nimoy (!) as the alien visitor. It is a wonderfully funny story, really kind of a frolic when compared to the heavier historical novels of Vidal, and yet it spoofs the Washington elite in a typically tart vidalian fashion: you see generals portrayed as macho buffoons, which was quite shocking for the pre-Vietnam protest era. The story is basically that of the immature alien coming to capriciously exercise power on a more primitive earth. Vidal admits that he wrote it to make money in Palimpsest, but it is quite fun. If Jerry Lewis had not bought the rights to this and made an awful film version, it might have been done much much better as satirical scifi.

Recommended.

Having starred in VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET IN THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PLAY AS THE 'JUVENILE' OPPOSITE THE THEN REIGNING INGENUE OF INNOCENCE SEX AND SASS, NAMELY SARAH MARSHALL, DAUGHTER OF HERBERT MARSHALL, and I, CONRAD JANIS, PLAYING 'CONRAD' HAD A ROYAL BLAST IN THIS QUIXOTIC, BRILLIANT SATIRE WITH A LOT OF 'ENGLISH' ON THE BALL. VIDAL IS UNEQUALED AND WE WERE PRIVILEGED TO HAVE PERFORMED IN THIS, WHICH FOR ME WAS THE FIRST OF MANY EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ENCOUNTERS I WOULD LATER ENJOY DOING, NAMELY MINDY'S DAD IN MORK AND MINDY, OTTO PALINDROME IN QUARK, A TASTY ROLE IN MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, AND ON THE SERIAL 'V'. I, LIKE MOST ORIGINATORS OF PLAYS ON BROADWAY, WOULD HAVE TRANSPORTED OUR VERSION OF VIDAL'S MASTERPIECE INTACT FROM OUR BROADWAY RENDITION TO THE SCREEN---WHICH IS NOT TO SAY THAT ALL OTHER VERSIONS WERE NOT MAGICAL IN THEIR OWN WAY. And from this Sci-Fi step I'm thrilled to have a current film which I directed and star in opposite The Three Time Academy Award Nominee Piper Laurie called: Bad Blood...The Hunger which is being released this fall and Winter. A Trailer exists on youtube called: Bad Blood...The Hunger---check it out.
As for Jerry Lewis' version, well, it certainly wasn't Sir Cyril Ritchard's sophisticated and Oh so gently humorous version, but Actors each have their times, so I'll say no more.

Gore Vidal's satire on 1950s militarism and presumptive American superiority is pretty dated. It still has things to say that are worth attention, but it's hard to imagine a modern-day staging of this play that wouldn't require some serious reframing. The story of an alien from space named Kreton who seems to be less a cretin than the earthlings he visits, the play has little of the spectacular verve of language associated with its writer, one of the great wordsmiths of his time. As a play it's somewhat more serious than the film version, which was restructured as a Jerry Lewis vehicle. But not by much. After years of things like 3rd Rock from the Sun, it's hard to imagine a modern audience finding the wide-eyed gullible alien here much of a comedic revelation. I wonder what Vidal thinks of it now, fifty years after he wrote it. Not much, I bet.