The hardworking staff noted with interest this item in yesterday’s New York Times Arts, Briefly column.

Forest Whitaker Will Make Broadway Debut

Forest Whitaker, the Academy Award winning film star, will make his Broadway debut next spring in a revival of “Hughie,” a short play by Eugene O’Neill. Mr. Whitaker, who won an Oscar for playing Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland,” will play Erie Smith, a hustler who confides in a hotel night clerk. The play, set in Manhattan in 1928, was written in the 1940s but was not staged on Broadway until 1964, when Jason Robards played Erie Smith; a 1975 revival starred Ben Gazzara and a 1996 revival starred Al Pacino.

The Missus and I happened to see that 1996 revival of Hughie with Al Pacino, which ran 50 minutes and cost $50.

Not surprisingly, we had never seen a play that cost a dollar a minute, and we vowed we never would again.

(To be sure graf goes here)

To be sure, Pacino was mesmerizing and Paul Benedict as Charlie was terrific, as this Los Angeles Times review noted.

But still: The new production will cost at least two dollars a minute.

Fughie.