Word: actor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...live. Stein is able to convey both this integrity and the salty humor of the old mariner through his slow, shuffling gait and simultaneously gruff and affectionate delivery. Stein's portrayal is the highlight of the production Above all, one senses in his performance the supreme confidence of an actor who has come to understand and accept his role, just as the Captain has carved out a lifestyle for himself in a world in which he is merely a vestige of a former...
Network. This film grabbed three Oscars for best actor, best actress and best screenplay in 1976, but it wasn't much of a year. The best thing about this movie about the shenanigans behind the evening news at UBS is commentator Peter Finch's letter-perfect imitation of Eric Sevareid. But once you get over your amusement at that stentorian phrasing you find nothing. This film is as sterile as a 30-second clip of Amy Carter walking to her integrated school. Faye Dunaway won her Oscar for Chinatown, not this lemon. Peter Finch is dead...
...score, which contains a couple dozen numbers, frequently demands operatic voices; the chorus of twenty-odd people change costumes roughly five times apiece to portray seventy-eight characters. The most demanding role is that of the narrator-ringmaster, who appears in five different guises, including Voltaire himself. Some of actor William Falk's lines had to be recorded to allow him time to race around the stage and transform himself into another character. Falk seems to be able to handle the various singing styles and characterizations, but the costume changes at times overwhelm him. Right: The Cilbert and Sullivan Players...
...play relying so heavily in both form and content on the power of words to have such an actor and actress in lead roles suggests a failure in direction as well. Valerie Lester's approach to the play is impeccably traditional: not necessarily a flaw, but once more emphasizing the language which is beyond the performers. Lester's pacing of the mostly uncut script is smooth and well-jointed, and a few nice touches--like a drum beat behind the duel scene--relive the general disarray a bit. Her failure lies in the casting of the show...
Jonathan Prince's Mercutio is equally smooth but much less ingenuous. Prince pays attention to what he says, but should learn that the moment of stillness is as valuable to an actor as the gesture. He accompanies each line in the "Queen Mab" speech with a fidget, wave, or wriggle of the hips and ends up irritating instead of captivating. Alexander C. Pearson gives Friar Laurence a good, hammy performance, suitably gawkish, well-intentioned and incompetent, but by the end he gets sucked into the general failure...