Remember \'Moose Murders\' She Was There - On Stage

Gerry Goodstein Holland Taylor and Nicholas Hormann in “Moose Murders,” which opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in 1983.

“From now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen ‘Moose Murders,’ and those who have not.”

So began Frank Rich’s legendary review of the legendary flop, a 1983 farce by Arthur Bicknell that closed on opening night and after some of the most gobsmacked notices in Broadway history.

With a revised version of the play opening Off Broadway Wednesday night, that firs group might get larger. But among those unlikely to return is Holland Taylor, who played Hedda Holloway in the original production.

As it happens Ms. Taylor â€" who went on to a lengthy TV career that included an Emmy nomination for “Two and a Half Men” and a win for “The Practice” â€" is back in New York, rehearsing “Ann,” her one-woman show about the late Texas Gov. Ann W. Richards, which opens on Broadway in March.

In a recent conversation about the new play with Adam Nagourney, the Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, the matter of “Moose Murders” came up.

“I actually I took that job because I knew it would be over quickly, and I had another show I wanted to do,” she confessed. “They were so desperate for me to take that job because Eve Arden had left suddenl! y and they needed to get somebody who had the nerve to get up in that show in a week. The lead! I made a very fast assessment to do it.”

Having mostly worked Off Broadway, “I was living on my credit cards,” she added. “I was a mess. I knew this would get me out of debt like that.” The writing was on the wall: “I knew they knew they were going to close. But they needed to open. I just sussed all this out.”

So will she see what the fuss was about, from the audience this time “I would if I were a free agent,” Ms. Taylor said. “I’m sort of busy.”