Word: acters
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...This one-acter, written by Leonard Melfi, difiers radically in feel from the other two plays. It is one further step removed from what we call naturalism and hardly seems to be taking place on earth. It is essentially not a comedy, and the language operates on a fantastical poetic level that is closer to the cosmos than the nitty-gritty of American life...
PETERBOROUGH, N.H. The Peterborough Players. When the lights go down, Peter Shaffer's characters cavort and sport their way through a people-jam in the dark in his hilarious Black Comedy. The Public Eye, another one-acter by Shaffer, follows a seemingly errant young wife...
Adaptation--Next -- Two very funny and chilling plays, both directed by Mike Nichols' brilliant ex-partner, Elaine May. The first one-acter, written by Miss May, shows the game of life as seen in terms of a TV quiz show. The second, by Terrence McNally (a perverse playwright's perverse playwright, and happily so), is about a 48-year-old man undergoing a humiliating army physical. Gabe Dell and James Coco--two of the best actor-comedians around--play the leads. At the GREENWICH MEWS THEATRE, W. 13th...
Elaine May is a corrosively perceptive satirist with a mean comic punch. Her off-Broadway one-acter Adaptation, the first of a double bill completed by Terrence McNally's Next, makes one laugh till it hurts, partly because the ache of recognition is in every line and situation. She has the wit to see that if Pavlov's dogs salivated at the tinkle of bells signifying food, modern man is not so very different. He salivates at psychological flash cards marked Emotional Maturity, Identity Crisis, Making a Commitment, as well as at traditional cues for action such...
...Typist is a real live one-acter, unlike the other skits. It alone demands sobriety for appreciation. At fifteen, when I first saw the play, it seemed pretty boring just to have two typists sitting on stage talking. But to the credit of Miss Austin and her cast, things livened up for me second time around, although a judicious speed-up of pacing still could have helped the production...