Arthur Landau is having a bad day. Actually, he's having a bad life. Sure, he's a successful young Manhattan lawyer, but he's also having a nervous breakdown. He's left his wife, he's tried suicide, and now he's at the end of a three-day drinking bout that lands him on the streets of his parents' hometown of Mineola, Long Island. Imagine his surprise when he is brought to an Orthodox synagogue, where a bunch of elderly Jews are attempting to exorcise a dybbuk (evil spirit) from a young woman's body. According to Orthodox beliefs, a quorum of ten men must be assembled before the service can begin, and Arthur, a lapsed Jew who doesn't believe in anything except his analyst, is the only person they could find as a tenth witness. That's the set-up for Paddy Chayefsky's 1959 comedy-drama, THE TENTH MAN, which played the Vivian Beaumont in the fall of 1989. The story that follows depicts what happens when these two radically different generations of Jews –young and old, scientific and mystical, cynical and faithful—are thrown together. Chayefsky did have a number of plays produced on Broadway during the 1950s and '60s, and THE TENTH MAN (his second Broadway effort) was the most notable. Nominated for three Tony Awards including Best Play, the production ran for two seasons at the Booth Theatre. Lincoln Center Theater's 30th anniversary production of THE TENTH MAN was directed by Ulu Grosbard, a two-time Tony Award nominee (for The Subject Was Roses and American Buffalo).
November 10, 1989 - January 14, 1990
