Word: barstow
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...Summer School Players have several first-rate actors this summer (Paul Barstow is back, and that is nice; David S. Cole and Samuel Abbott have moved in from the winter Gilbert and Sullivan troupe), and a lot of very enthusiastic people, but none of them seems very happy in his role in this play. Tom Griffin is monotonous (and bored?) as Jack Burden; Terence Currier's Willie Stark seldom evokes any touch of the mesmeric damagoguery of the man -- although he's better once he gets a cigar in his mouth; Abbott (Tiny Duffy) has to keep fighting back...
Particularly so, fortunately, is Robert McEntire, the Tycoon. Mr. McEntire struts roguishly and confidently, smoothing his hands over his assumed paunch and twinkling devilishly at everybody as he enjoins them didactically to "Read Pepys' diary," "Read Marcus Aurelius," "Read Walt Whitman." So, too, the ever-capable Paul Barstow, now the Aristocrat, an ex-governor and F.O. man: he gestures with the monocle, is dismayed and contented both with proper peerish disdain...
Jane Quigley, every bit as versatile as Mr. Barstow, is a quite magnificently scornful Polish Lady (a circus acrobat as well), and if her accent often thickens dangerously, her gusto becomes almost unbounded. Richard Hornby, the alternately tearful and sternly moral Gunner, also occasionally lapses from his proper voice (a deadly Cockney whine); but the Peter Sellers mustache and 'onest workman cringe that he adopts are entirely successful--this is compentent character interpretation indeed...
Director John Hancock, fortunately, has recognized the importance of the unheroic king; and his giving the role to Paul Barstow has been one of his most intelligent directorial decisions to date. Mr. Barstow can deliver his lines with just the proper amount of quiet, stiff and confused earnestness. A "cook" in the "kitchen" of politics Antigone calls him; but he is not wholly contemptible--and Mr. Barstow makes him as much a king as he is a compromiser...
...others, Paul Barstow's quiet and noble Duke Senior, Richard Conrad's tuneful Amiens and Maggie Zizkind's pert, English-sparrowish Celia merit attention and more space than I can give them...