Ben Martin’s 1961 Caffe Cino Photos

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BEN MARTIN was TIME Magazine’s first staff photographer 1957, TIME Magazine Senior Photographer 1957-1989, photographed for all divisions of Time Inc., including LIFE, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, Money, Discover, Entertainment Weekly, Architectural Forum, House and Home, TIME LIFE Books, HBO, Book of the Month Club and Corporate. In February 1961 he took the photo below, the first published Caffe Cino performance photo, Time Magazine, Feb. 10, 1961. It was labeled in TIME as F. STORY TALBOT’s “Herrengasse.” Story says it is actually of the next show, Tennessee Williams’ “Camino Real.” The central figure is undeniably the great SHIRLEY STOLER. Photo originally shared by GARY FILSINGER. Mister Martin has graciously given permission for these fully copyrighted photos to be shared here and here only.

SHIRLEY STOLER center as The Gypsy

Woman laughing at left, singer/conductor JANET HESSLER.
Man laughing at right, dancer/actor/director BILL MITCHELL.

A view of the art exhibit, a standard feature at the Cino in the early days.

Standing-room only! A guitar in the window–A remnant of 1950’s folk-singing? Over the Gypsy’s Daughter’s bed is the word DATENÉ (the name of the week’s exhibiting artist?)
Below, a serious moment for Shirley.

Below: 4 more Village venues photographed by Mister Martin that night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rowland Scherman’s 1960 Cino Photos

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Photographer ROWLAND SCHERMAN who took THIS famous image of BOB DYLAN, also took photos of the Caffe Cino in 1960.

These two pictures are of Mister Scherman himself in 1960–the right-hand one is a publicity shot of him as “Billy Donahue,” pop singer. Mister Scherman has shared MP3’s of two of his hits, “Oh, Darling,” and “Dream of Me,” which I will gladly forward to anyone who writes asking for them at rbrtptrck@aol.com.

JOE CINO in 1960–Photographer ROWLAND SCHERMAN says: “If I had known the future, I would have kept a camera on him all the time. As it is, I just have the one. But it does help sum him up” The cylinders at the right are the chimes Joe rang before announcing a show. See my mural of him ringing them HERE.

Unidentified play

Unidentified play

Unidentified play. 3rd from left, JOE DAVIES, 4th, CHARLES LUBIER.

Unidentified players

FRED WILLARD with unidentified player.

Unidentified player

JOE DAVIES in an unidentified play

FRED WILLARD and unidentified friend.

Unidentified patrons

Actress SHIRLEY STOLER

ROWLAND SCHERMAN writes on 7/14/09: “Bottom photo of the girl with the cup is my old Bohemian friend Judy Berkowitz. The architypical Village beatnik .”

Unidentified patron (sitting across from SHIRLEY STOLER, says photographer ROWLAND SCHERMAN)

The Silent Era 2

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Despite such treasures as the photos on these pages, most of them gifts of BOB DAHDAH, the Cino’s most frequent director, this period of the Cino is the hardest to document. So many artists were in-and-out of the obscure little room on the quaint side-street. Few shows were advertised. Many hadn’t even a program. Most were unphotographed. Many people kept no souvenirs; there was no Off-Off Broadway then, and they regarded their shows at the Cino as just exercises, not genuine performances to commemorate or keep proof of. Joe told me that he started doing shows because Phoebe Mooney, an acting student, tired of performing only in class, asked if she could do her “class scenes” for his audience. That wasn’t true; shows had been done for at least three years before Phoebe did one, but her attitude may have been common, that the Cino was just an extension of study. Many people who did keep souvenirs died without heirs; whatever they had saved was discarded. Evictions and loss of property are also common. And there are numerous stories of a parent, a friend, a mate, a lover, a roommate, a caretaker just getting tired of boxes or albums and throwing them away. In addition, there are the people who tell me they’re defnitely going to go look through those boxes and find me something…but die before they do.

Joe’s great friend and supporter CHARLES LOUBIER may have posed for this pic the same day that he met teenaged Joe Cino. (This wonderful photo courtesy of Bill Mitchell)

BILL MITCHELL (above in Millay’s Aria da Capo, 1960) produced, directed, and/or played in a revue called What? and a memorable pirated The Boy Friend (both possibly 1963).

Aria da Capo and other 1960/1961 revivals were staged by GLENN DU BOSE, seen above in summer stock, 1961, with fellow early Cinoite KEITH CARSEY. (Show is Head and Shoulders, Kennebunkport Playhouse, libretto by Glenn’s life-partner James Arntz).

Young RICHARD SMITHIES

Young BOB DAHDAH

Young MARY BOYLAN

JOE DAVIES in the Cino dressing room.

JOE DAVIES with Joe Cino, November, 1960.

JOE DAVIES as most of us remember him.

JOE CINO in his teens in Buffalo, courtesy Richard and Steve Cino.

JOE CINO in shorts with brothers Steve, Richard, and Gaspar, courtesy Richard and Steve Cino.

JOE CINO at 19 in 1950 in Bobino at Henry Street Players, NYC, courtesy Richard and Steve Cino.

JOE CINO purportedly shot by Charles Loubier.

BOB DAHDAH

The Silent Era – The Caffe Cino Before Decor

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From 1958 through 1968, the CAFFE CINO in New York’s Greenwich Village presented plays on its tiny floor. LANFORD WILSON, SAM SHEPARD, JOHN GUARE, and others apprenticed there. But early shows were mainly pirated works by Williams, O’Neill, Wilder, Anouilh, and the like. The Cino later became famous for its costumed habitues and elaborate decor, but at first its casts wore suits and ties, and the walls sported art exhibits. Most early productions are lost in the shadows of what I call “The Silent Era,” but some pioneers have shared these snapshots dated 1958-63 of plays, people, and the place before its stage shone with invention, its walls fluttered with clippings, and its ceiling twinkled with tinsel.

JOE CINO faces MARY BOYLAN, possibly the Cino’s most frequent actress. Bob Dahdah, Joe, and Mary are even vaguely credited with writing plays for the place.

Earliest known datable Cino performance photo. RON FABER and HELEN HONKAMP in Dorothy Parker’s Here We Are.

BOB DAHDAH, standing, directed and/or acted in pirated plays at the Cino from 1960. Frequent actor GARY FILSINGER kneels at Bob’s feet. Bob also directed original plays by LANFORD WILSON, DAVID STARKWEATHER, BOB HEIDE, EDITH LAURIE, and DONALD KVARES. See Bob’s eventual reward HERE.

Unidentified play and players, against the same background as Here We Are, December 1958.

ALLEGRA JOSTAD (seated center) reading French surrealist poetry with The Chamber Players, 1959. photo from Allegra Jostad/ Silberstein.

A flyer for a show of paintings, July, 1959! (flyer by courtesy of BILL MITCHELL)

HELEN HONKAMP and BOB DAHDAH, unidentified play, against ROWLAND SCHERMAN’s 1960 photo show.

BOB COSTA, ELIZABETH SHANKLIN, and MOLETTA REAGAN in a popular “No Exit.” BOB DAHDAH says “No Exit” was his first production at the Cino in 1960, but JOE CINO is credited with directing a version in 1963, with some of these players.

LEIGH DEAN and RICHARD SMITHIES in Ionesco’s The Chairs, Caffe Cino, dated 1962. RICHARD, a novelist and singer as well, played in and/or directed a number of classics at the Cino through 1964, as well as new work by DAVID STARKWEATHER.

Impossible to place in time due to gappy records is this photo of CHARLOTTE OBERLY and WALLY ANDROCHUK. Knowing idealistic Wally’s classic taste, it might be from Ibsen’s Ghosts or Chekhov’s The Seagull. The photo looks like CONRAD WARD’s early style, so 1963-5 is a guess. As late as 1967 Wally did The Marriage Proposal, right between CHARLES STANLEY’s collage-play Vultures over Miami and HAAL BORSKE’s campy The Brown Crown, so you can see how determined he was.

“Silent Era” shows were often repeated. BOB DAHDAH first directed RON COLBY’s Episode in 1962, and J.D. Salinger’s At War with the Eskimos in 1960, but here’s GARY HAYNES in 1963 revivals of both (with JOE DAVIES who directed the Episode revival). Photos courtesy Gary Haynes. RON COLBY adds in an e-mail, Mar. 25, 2009: “JOE DAVIES played the lead in my play “Episode,” at the Cino, and then against my wishes took it over to the then-fledgling La Mama, because he couldn’t get enough. “

Pre-existing plays continued to be done even after the Cino had become known for original works. Above: MARION GAINES, MARY BOYLAN, and GWEN VAN DAM in BOB DAHDAH’s 1964 production of Hello from Bertha, by Tennessee Williams, the Cino’s most frequent author (over 20 productions).

MYSTERY PICTURE 1: Who, what, when? The wicker table appears in show photos as late as 1967.

MYSTERY PICTURE 2: The decor suggests Christmas.

Miss A Week, and You Missed A World

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(Wonderful color images of recent revivals of several Cino “worlds” HERE.)

While it might be true that the “typical” Cino play was “a quarrel between over-educated young people in a small New York apartment,” we writers took our audiences to a great many fanciful and philosophical settings as well. You never knew where you were going to be when John P. Dodd’s  lights came up.

Photos of White Whore, Moon, Balls, Warhol Machine, and Ludlow Fair by JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

A quarrel between over-educated young people in a small New York apartment, Bob Heide’s Moon, 1967, may be the characteristic Cino play.

An asylum where actresses traded identities. Tom Eyen’s The White Whore and the Bit Player, 1967.

A graveyard where the dead discuss infinity. Balls, by Paul Foster, 1964.

A front porch where the young contemplate both childhood and maturity. This Is the Rill Speaking, Lanford Wilson, 1965. Photo: Fred Eberstadt.

A theatre where showfolk deny the Depression. Dames at Sea, 1966. Photo: Conrad Ward.

A Looney Tunes, drag, Dickensian London. Soren Agenoux’s Chas. Dickens’ Christmas Carol,” 1966. Photo by Billy Name/OvoWorks, Inc.

A city terrified of street violence. Paul Foster’s Hurrah for the Bridge!, 1963. Photo by Conrad Ward.

A laundromat terrified by primitive jealousy. H.M. Kotoukas’ Medea, 1965. Photo: Conrad Ward.

The Garden of Eden. And He Made a Her, Doric Wilson, 1961.

The banks of the Nile. Eyen on Eyen, Tom Eyen, 1966.

A warrior’s welcome. The Warhol Machine, Robert Patrick, 1966.

A woman’s revenge. Claris Nelson’s Medea, 1962.

A plain girl’s Gesthemane. Ludlow Fair, Lanford Wilson, 1965.

An American couple’s naughty weekend in Jean-Claude van Itallie’s Motel, 1965 (photo possibly from the Off-Broadway production).

The mind of a mourning madman. Charles Stanley in his Opening July 4th: For Joe, 1967.

The heart of a wondering woman. Allegra Jostad reads her poetry, 1959.