Word: clever
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...revival at Manhattan's Circle in the Square theater is not exactly on the rocks, but it is certainly becalmed. One obvious flaw is the casting. Shaw's hero, Jack Tanner (George Grizzard), who doubles as Don Juan, is meant to be a clever and intense young idealist, full of revolutionary ardor. He is in the grip of what Shaw calls a "master passion," and his iconoclastic views are contrasted with those of a fossilized former liberal, Roebuck Ramsden (Richard Woods). Grizzard works hard. But he is visibly too old for the part and lacks the psychic energy...
Pillinger staged this production as a "labor of love," but apparently his fixation upon the sound of the script blinded him to its potential for a spirited treatment. Fry's prose, though too densely written to be believable, is loaded with clever puns which are here denied the emphasis needed to make them funny. The director's love of the play also led him to slight other important elements such as consistent character development, blocking and technical competence. The set, for instance, suggests that the company started out with some good ideas but didn't have the time or ability...
However, it was freshman goaltender Wade Lau who outdid veterans and newcomers alike. Lau had 29 saves, and showed the promise of handling the net chores with poise and experience for the next few years. He refused to commit himself against breaking shooters all evening, and thoroughly frustrated clever forwards such as P.C.'s Colin Ahern, who Lau personally foiled five or six times from point-blank range...
...Stoppard sits down at a keyboard of words, and plays upon them with wickedly clever virtuosity. Few can resist his cerebral variations on the themes of Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and The Importance of Being Earnest in Travesties...
...that include camera-fired fléchettes, boomslang venom, plastique-packed tea bags, flame-throwing hair dryers, nerve gas and atomic tennis balls. Nor can they figure who or what is the ubiquitous Chalice, or whether the Mancneff partnership can hold up. As for the Irvholz team, its novel is clever, cynical and compelling...