Word: bettis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Aiuola Bruciata, the work receiving its first American performance this week at the Tufts Arena Theater as The Burnt Flower-Bed, was written in 1952, near the end of the last great creative burst of its author, Ugo Betti. It is a play that states the problem of modern nihilism with uncompromising starkness and attempts to press beyond in the reaffirmation of human responsibility. Even a cursory reading of Betti's play in Henry Reed's excellent English translation makes it clear why Betti is being hailed on the continent as an even greater dramatist than Pirandello...
...different levels, the philosophic, the political, and the intimately personal; yet all three are perfectly fused. It observes the classic unities of time and place and occurs against a magnificent backdrop of mountains (which the set of the current production has denied us). The theme must owe something to Betti's lifelong career as a magistrate: it tells of the final human hunger to make sense of things--political catastrophies, the death of those we love--by restoring the concepts of guilt and innocence, punishment and choice, in all their dreadful nobility. Only by forcing the wedge of moral responsibility...
...opening night last Tuesday, most of the Tufts players seemed bent more on obscuring Betti's genius than on revealing it. Much of the trouble must no doubt be attributed to the inevitable pressures of summer stock on a small, young, and inexperienced company; the relentless demand for an entire new production each week cannot help but produce some shaky premieres, with cues missed and whole speeches being dropped right and left. One had the sense of watching a late rehearsal rather than an actual performance, in fact, and it is therefore particularly difficult to pass judgment...
Tufts Arena Theatre (Medford): June 30-July 4, Ionesco's "The Lesson" and "Jack"; July 7-11, Goodrich and Hackett's "The Great Big Doorstep"; July 14-18, Glasgow's "Allison's House"; July 21-25, Bagnold's "The Chalk Garden"; July 28-August 1, Ugo Betti's "The Burnt Flowerbed"; August 4-8, Giraudoux' "The Enchanted...
Director van Itallie plans to aim his productions at a broad audience, and hopes to produce established works of various types. As possible playwrights, he listed Shakespeare, Jean Anouilh, and Ugo Betti, and musical writers Noel Coward and Kurt Weil. Special admission prices will be given to students...