Word: broadway
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Broadway...
...Broadway...
Simplicity, spareness and clarity are the order of the evening, and that alone makes the show a treat by contrast to most other Broadway musicals. There is no piston-pumping chorus testing the floorboards in Celebration, only a small gentle band of masked dancers decked in the costumes and spirit of a carnival. The straight melodic line and unpretentiously apt lyrics of the songs appeal to the ear without assaulting it. Celebration is intimate and beguiling and it has a distinctive personality rather than a powerhouse complex. It is one of those good things that come in small packages...
Perhaps it was ahead of its time - as indicated by the rollicking, rumbustious piece of theater that the APA-Phoenix Repertory Company made of it on Broadway last week...
...playful, astringent intelligence and a vision deeply colored by the theater of the absurd. One delightful sequence has Arthur trying to goad his father into surprising his wife in her lover's arms, while the father theorizes why he should not. Unfortunately, stilted direction robs this off-Broadway production of rightful humor, and the actors seem to admire the play without enjoying it. The translation into English is somewhat awkward and definitely requires idiomatic agility. Despite these production flaws, Tango is one of those rare and engrossing dramas that pays an evening-long courtesy call on the playgoer...