SOURCE: A review of A Small Family Business, in Variety, May 4, 1992, p. 191.

In the following essay, A Small Family Business and its supporters are given a harsh review.

Those who feel that subsidized theater ought to do more than subsidize Broadway have a great new case study with A Small Family Business. Why, critics might reasonably ask, is the Manhattan Theater Club devoting its considerable resources to the lavish staging of a middling comedy by England's most prolific playwright?

To be fair, the company created a commercial subsidiary, MTC Prods. Inc., to co-produce Business directly on Broadway. But the principals are artistic director Lynne Meadow and managing director Barry Grove—director and executive producer, respectively, of the production at the Music Box.

Meadow and Grove need answer to no one regarding their long record for presenting some of the most adventurous theater in New York (particularly, in recent...