Word: arkins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...biggest, of course, is Yossarian. Like most larger-than-death heroes, he is everyman. Still, some men are more Yossarian than others. Mike Nichols knows. And Alan Arkin knows. And Mike Nichols knows that Alan Arkin knows. "It was the only part I've ever worked on which didn't demand a conception," says Arkin, "because there isn't much difference between me and Yossarian." Viewing Arkin in the film of Catch-22 is like watching Lew Alcindor sink baskets or Bobby Fischer play chess. The man seems made for the role. Fear rides on his back like a schizoid...
...Arkin's complex, triumphant performance is due in part to good genes ?he looks more like Yossarian than he does like Arkin. In part it is due to a virtuoso player entering his richest period. But in the main it is due to the quirky talent of Director Mike Nichols, whose previous successes have been wrung largely from the bland and facile. It is as if Neil Simon were to turn out Endgame or Peter Sellers to turn into Falstaff...
...mostly lies in the zany bits of business that Director Alan Arkin has injected into the Cabinet scenes and the comically proficient acting of such Second City alumni as Paul Dooley, Andrew Duncan and Anthony Holland. Holland, in particular, has been an off-Broadway delight for several years. His knees sag with melancholy. He can throw himself on a chair as limply as a discarded bath towel and rise from it with the agitated wiriness of a berserk coat hanger. Perhaps all he needs to be truly discovered is to have Neil Simon see the show, as he did Jimmy...