Happy Like God
Now Defunct Theater Productions
1979

In 1977 it appeared the wave of Sichermania had crested and fallen leaving both David and Barnaby Sicherman crestfallen. But the world, as Barnaby Sicherman knew all too well, likes to do as it's told, and armed with only three feet two inches of rocket fueled talent and a stack of compromising photos he quickly got Ernest Borgnine to agree to sign on to a new project spearheaded this time by Barnaby himself. When asked of the contents of the photos, kept to this day in a strong box in the Sicherman basement, Borgnine refused comment. Sicherman for his part would only say, "The dirty dozen ain't even the half of it."

The play, produced under the working title of My George, My Georges was produced by Barnaby Sicherman's Now Defunct Theater Productions and written by his estranged wife Myra Sailor Sicherman Bent, under heavy duress.

"He came to me in a drunken rage swinging a pistol and screaming, 'I got 'em where I want 'em, alls I need is some goddamn words.' Well, what could I do? I mean I still love him, I just couldn't live with someone who spells so poorly, so I gave him a play."

And the play she gave him would be known as the play that Broadway forgot. The pairing of Sicherman and Borgnine created an inexplicable void between 50th and 51st streets that locals will not discuss to this day. Two photographs and the hazy memories of the principals involved are all that is left of the play that took up residence at the Winter Garden Theater in June and July of 1979.

Says Daniel Creschter, Broadway denizen and part-time British loyalist, "Wasn't A Chorus Line there in '79? I'm pretty sure it was." And while overwhelming evidence points in that direction, a Frank Rich review from the June 15, 1979 New York Times casts some doubt. "This reviewer must apologize, for while it is true that a play was viewed on the evening prior at Broadway's Winter Garden Theater, I cannot for the life of me remember what the play was about, or for that matter what it was called or who was in it. Not a single damned thing. Even my notes seem to be tips on dog racing interspersed with the occasional doodle of a ballerina smoking a pipe. I will say that while the portrait of a ballerina smoking a pipe is clearly an indictment of the bourgeois values bestowed on modern youth and the resultant complacency it has borne into the artistic aspiration of newer generations, it is a hackneyed work at best, devoid of any real inspiration or, for that matter, promise. That said, I wish I had one clue as to what in God's name I saw last night."

Again, Daniel Creschter. "Wasn't Clive Barnes writing for the Times in '79? I'm pretty sure he was."

One person who seems to have some knowledge of what happened inside the Winter Garden during that summer of 1979 is David Sicherman himself.

"I was only five years old, so my memory of this is a little hazy, but I seem to remember Ernest Borgnine smaking my ass and yelling 'Faster Spider, faster!' Smaking? Did I say smaking? I meant smacking."

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