Word: beckett
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Apartheid is the ineradicable stench in the air of their mean home, but their squabble for power within those walls is neither didactic nor particularly political. The wry, absurdist humor recalls Beckett, and the inchoate sense of menace parallels Pinter. The candor of the final confessional between the brothers is Fugard's own. At Yale, as in the original, Fugard has directed and plays the half-derelict, fair-skinned brother. At the outset he seems fragile, ineffectual, on the border of madness. As the narrative focuses on the implications of his relative whiteness, he gathers strength and wisdom. Zakes Mokae...
...does not work, of course. But Calvino's narrative of this doomed quest succeeds admirably, in part because he, like Samuel Beckett, recognizes the comic possibilities inherent in the tailspin of logic toward the absurd. Mr. Palomar's relentless speculations render him buffoonish. Passing a woman sunbathing topless on a beach, he averts his eyes lest she cover herself and embarrass them both. On reflection, though, he decides that his behavior was incorrect, since it reinforced outmoded taboos against nudity. So he walks by again, this time taking in the bare breasts as an incidental feature in the general landscape...
...cramped space in the Loeb Ex, set director Stephen O'Donnell does a great job. A massive subway bridge (which resembles a structure used in the ART production of Beckett's Endgame) runs the length of the stage while black-and-white slides of dirty city life flash onto a film screen at the back of the stage...
...stage effects are frequently apt and memorable. When Dantes is thrown into a dungeon, he and a grizzled fellow prisoner (David Warrilow) wail about their plight as their bodies sink beneath the stage. Soon only their heads are visible, lighted starkly from below, in a striking, Beckett-like image of existential despair...
Siskel: "Well plagiarized, Roger. You know, I think it is about time that Dan Steinman got credit for what amounts to a complete revolution in filmmaking. When seen limb to limb, the episodes in this saga form an existential drama, like those of Beckett, where the characters are hopelessly trapped by a world that does not make sense--and indeed can prove very deadly. If I'm not wrong, you originally panned the films...