Word: barnumism
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...drama, a form that intrigued Yeats for its simplicity and ritual: it begins with the ceremonous unfolding and folding of a large cloth, a less mechanical and more suggestive device than a curtain for marking the division between the presence of actors and the progress of a play. William Barnum's slow and deliberate opening mime as the Old Man at the elusive fountain of immortality does more to set the scene than the other actors are later able to maintain. Barnum and Wally Know as the Young Man (Cuchulain), use thir mature voices to form a firm center...
...BARNUM AND KNOX complement each others' strengths again as Conchubar and Cuchulain in On Baile's Strand, but this play uses the relationship of two lesser characters, the Blind Man and the Fool, to equal purpose in commenting on the progress of Cuchulain's life. Peter Wirth and Joel Davidson succeed only partially in filling these two roles with intelligent but unrealized interpretations. Director Donnally Miller emphasizes the mutual dependence of the two half-men well enough, but the scenes where they're alone, ideal for comic improvisation, drag more than they should...
...spite of myself. I felt great sympathy for the "Con Man of the Year" [Feb. 21] when I read your report that he faces a jail sentence for fraud and perjury. Not since the heyday of P.T. Barnum has one man entertained the American public so long and so well...
...mock, effeminate Paladin, if you can imagine such a creature, in his black slacks and black dueling shirt; every time a dramatic gesture was forthcoming, he took a gun fighter's stance. His delivery was like that of a turbid Shakespearian actor, Edwin Booth, perhaps, at the Ford Theater. Barnum and Bailey could have found a better barker. Who sold this guy to Yevtushenko, I don't know and why Yevtushenko not only let him butcher the lyrics but also appeared to approve of the fallen, uneven slices is beyond poetic sensibility. Nonetheless, Barry Boys was the specialite...
Russ Meyer, the Barnum of the skin-flicks,has recently been grinding out his sexploitation films under the imprimatur of major studios. He now follows the thunderous vulgarity of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with a tepid adaptation of Irving Wallace's best-seller about an obscenity bust, The Seven Minutes...