Word: bleak
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...British Playwright Emlyn (Night Must Fall) Williams has successfully read from the master's works in 43 U.S. cities. Still whiskered and white-tied, Williams was back on Broadway last week. On certain evenings, he repeats last season's bill; on others, he offers a one-man Bleak House...
...Bleak House is cut to a 25th of its length; unabridged, says Williams, it would take more than 60 hours to perform. The present arrangement is clearly preferable and often pleasant. As sheer virtuosity, Williams' impersonation of 36 characters, his skill as a vocal quick-change artist, is exceptional. As theatrical entertainment, the sayings and doings of such comic creations as Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pardiggle and Harold Skimpole are often great fun. And for the evening as a whole, Williams provides at least a loose rubber band of a story...
...main trouble with it all is that it's no longer Bleak House. Its story might just squeak through as something called Lady Dedlock's Secret, though even the book's main plot gets misted over, besides being by now almost too stagy for the stage. And though the drastic cutting at times has its points-it largely silences sweet, virtuous-Esther Summerson, that English cousin of Elsie Dinsmore-it far oftener has its penalties. All but vanished are the things that really make Bleak House notable-its satire on the Court of Chancery, its vast, varied...
...account I gave [last year]," began Butler, "was, inevitably, a bleak one . . . The difference today is very striking." Britain's balance of payments had been converted from a 1951 deficit of ?398 million to a 1952 surplus of ?291 million. Gold and dollar reserves at the end of March had climbed to ?774 million (a great improvement, but still only about a quarter of what Britain should have as leader and banker of the sterling area). Now came a reward: H.M.'s government was about to add two ounces a week to the Briton's sugar ration...
...shot has been fired. In bleak, besieged Buraimi, Turki still holds out; he has 800 bags of rice, enough for many meals. Around him circle a busy band of British. Happiest of all are the local sheiks. They figure that all this excitement means oil. One of them has already decided how to spend his first oil royalty check-on a fancy new airplane...