Word: anouilh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...leave Sophocles out of this. This is the Antigone of Jean Anouilh, who has as much right as anybody else to take and rework an old story in the public domain. If his Antigone is not the "Tragedy" he designated it, it is (even in the Lewis Galantiere translation) an intriguing, witty, almost moving work, written with the urbane tough-minded brilliance of which only the French seem to have the secret...
Under Liz Stearns' direction the performance is a good one, and Richard Smithies brings to it considerable brilliance of his own. "My part is not an heroic one," says Anouilh's Creon, but in Mr. Smithies portrayal he is at least deeply sympathetic. What, after all, is a competent, compassionate, conscientious king to do when his niece insists upon being executed? "... the work is there to be done," he says, "and a man can't fold his arms and refuse to do it. They say it's dirty work. But if we didn't do it, who would...
...that Anouilh's long one-act is everybody's show. It dramatizes what Shaw called "moral passion," where as most people are more interested in the other kind. The action is kept resolutely offstage, and we are treated instead to long analyses of situation and motive. But the argument is intense and beautifully conducted, and it is as irrelevant to call the play "talky" as it would be to call a drama of the heavy-breathing school "action-y." The production would be a credit to any Harvard organization; when a critic thinks of chucking it altogether and retreating into...
...past. But Alex keeps calm till Geoffrey casts a luscious peeress, Lady Perdita Carne, in his medieval spectacle play Ludovic II. The soap operantics of Ask Me No More are made palatable by a knowing re-creation of the London theater, lively dialogue that is often outrageously punny ( "Anouilh, get your gun"), and a couple of cocktail party scenes laced with name-dribbling comic horror. It may not be literature, but it is a fairly painless way to decompress, for an evening or two, from the TV bends...
Students organized a drama group which presented a fair Antigone (Anouilh) and an excellent No Exit (Sartre), both highlights of the School's artistic program, along with an outstanding concert by Schmidt's Summer School Chorus, which made a film for television on the problems of training a chorus. Despite few rehearsals, Schmidt's dynamic direction produced a stirring program...