Word: arnolds
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...discover that what Arnold Beckoff wants--a career, a home, a person to share it with is no different from what everyone seeks. With sharp wit and a touch of pathos. Fierstein can appeal to both gay and straight audiences as he openly reveals how similar are the problems and desires of both worlds and how the worlds are not nearly as far apart as they might superficially seem to be. Arnold is a nightclub drag queen who falls in love, loses his lover to a woman, wants to raise a child, and has to cope with a nagging Jewish...
That indeed is the point of the play, a collection of three one-act vignettes written separately that cover six years in Arnold's life (and in Fierstein's life, as it is largely autobiographical). Stretching over 10 scenes and two intermissions in 3 hours and 30 minutes, the play is long and runs the risk of losing its audience. Occasionally, the pacing does drag and one can't help from checking the watch or fidgeting with the coat. Overall, however, the dialogue as presented by some very fine performers entices us, and we can truly empathize with Arnold...
...ARNOLD, Charles Adler takes on a very demanding role which requires him to be on stage, exposing his soul throughout the entire play. Adler begins rather weakly, coming off as a whining, complaining nuisance. He improves rapidly, however, and by the cathartic third act we must believe that Arnold is indeed very proud of what he is, what he does, and what he wants to do. He doesn't want the squalor of the back room bars; he wants a neat apartment near a park, a nice place where he can build his family. Adler quite successfully reveals Arnold...
Estelle Getty, repeating her Broadway portrayal of Arnold's mother, is superb as the classic sharp-witted fastidious Jewish mother, who can not come to accept her son's way of life. With perfect comic timing and the characteristic Brooklynese--moved--to--Miami Beach inflections, Getty delivers such gems as "You have your whole life ahead of you...while mine is flashing before my eyes," "What do I say...do I tell you how to run your life?" and the ultimate, "You get only one mother in this world." Through the humor and blunt directness, she expresses her own pain...
...controversial Review sent 250 letters to Indian chiefs across the nation asking if they approved of Dartmouth's symbol, without including a picture. They received 150 answers, of which JI were negative, 132 were positive, and 15 declined to answer, says the Review's Executive Director Peter L. Arnold...