Word: chulkaturin
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Dates: during 1969-1969
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...tone of Ribman's play original. The combination of resignation and amused tolerance which characterizes landowner Nikolai Alexeevich Chulkaturin is reminiscent--deliberately so--of Camus' heroes. But there is a new dimension to Chulkaturin. He is awkward, comicly so at times. He possesses that amazing ability to stop a conversation dead merely by his appearance...
...Zoditch reads, he tries in vain to keep from realizing that he, too, is taking the journey of the fifth horse. He constantly criticizes Chulkaturin's characters, his words, his sentimentality, his quiet compassion, and, of course, he criticizes Chulkaturin's love for Lisa. But there is no escaping the obvious, and he is drawn deeper into Chulkaturin's tale; he even begins to substitute the names of figures in his own life for those of Chulkaturin's characters. And as he is drawn deeper, as his critique becomes more impassioned and more futile, it becomes obvious that Zoditch lacks...
Hollis Huston, who plays Chulkaturin is a very fortunate man; this stumbling, bumbling butt of every joke, because he is so very human, so unlike the other-worldly Marsault of The Stranger, is one of the most convincing of the characters Ribman has created...
...only part of Chulkaturin's appeal is to be found in the script. For the rest Huston is responsible. He makes Chulkaturin awkward without making him an embarrassing buffon, the greatest danger in such a characterization. For if Chulkaturin were a clown, his words, his perception, his ability to endure the "slings and arrows" could not possibly be convincing. When Huston smiles, it is the quiet smile, the wise and tolerant smile, that can appear only on the lips of the man who has known a bitter fate and has, ultimately, perceived the irony of it. He knows, quite well...