Word: banality
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...only member of the cast (this may reflect on director Maurice Breslow) who fully appreciated the slapstick possibilities of the play. Jerry Vermilye's competence as Peter was unfailing, and Raye Bush as Mrs. Mallow, the old lady who repays Peter's charity, handled a fairly banal character interestingly. But William Hillier's portrayal of Bill detracted greatly from the whole production. It would be impossible to say he didn't develop his part, because he didn't really know it. He stumbled over his lines (and everyone else's) with all the expressiveness and variety of Howdy Doody...
Despite its banal theme, Orontea became one of Italy's most popular works during Cesti's lifetime, and last week's La Piccola Scala performance suggested why. From start to finish, it was a singer's opera. The orchestration for the most part was slender, graceful, beautifully designed to give space to the principals (Mezzo-Soprano Teresa Berganza, Tenor Alvino Misciano), who sang aria after aria in serene, long-breathing lines. Bright with sentimentally colored melodies, Orontea scored a hit even with the critic of the Communist L'Unita, who conceded that "it really...
...English Bible. A translation of the New Testament from the original Greek by a committee of British scholars and stylists whose aim was to make the Scripture intelligible to moderns who find much of the 17th century King James version unintelligible. Inevitably flatter and occasionally banal, it is nevertheless smooth and lucid, casts new light on many an obscure passage...
...always been the most versatile of technicians. He invented his own brand of collage that went far beyond the two-dimensional pastings of his contemporaries. To a collection of banal and unrelated objects, he would add line and color and thus produce a scene that seemed full of recognizable images and yet was essentially a recorded hallucination...
...help. Well, perhaps had there never be fore been any exotic musicals at all. 13 Daughters would have emerged a real curiosity instead of a curio, the libretto could have been forgiven its dullness, and what is lilting in the music would have blotted out what is banal. But on a Broad way that has offered exotic musicals and to spare, even what is reasonably good in 13 Daughters-such as a few of Rod Alexander's dances-still seems reminiscent of something that was better. What alone stand out. for elegance and atmosphere, are George Jenkins' sets...