Word: cleverly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Most of Sellar's staging ideas are as clever and witty as one would expect from this incorrigibly bratty director. Perhaps the best scene is a long aria in which Caesar announces how he will kick much Egyptian butt in an upcoming battle while his bodyguard gets chased around the stage by Egyptian commandos...
Sweettable is not a complete disaster; Ribman is a smart guy, and there are many good ideas and clever chunks of writing in this work. The superb cast and designers work hard to bring out the best of this dramatic turnip, and damned if they don't squeeze out a little dramatic blood--but it's sweated drop by drop from the brows of the actors...
...white scrim is blown by a wind machine, representing the white wall of a terrific blizzard. A shrill voice booms through the P.A. system, then--Riiiip!--Frau von Kessel (Elizabeth Franz) and her servant tear the scrim and stick their torsos through it. It's supposed to look clever and mysterious, these two figures popping out of the waving whiteness, but it's just a cheap and cosmetic stunt...
From time to time a good idea or clever dramatic conflict appears in Sweettable. But just as the audience starts to get interested, the moment is mercilessly crushed beneath the heel of Ribman's pompous phrasing and erratic characterization. This play is bad in a painful way, as it time and again raises your expectation that something worthwhile is about to happen, then disappoints you by dropping the theme or hiding behind a convenient cliche. The wasted talents of the director, cast, designers and crew make the spectacle all the more pitiful. Sweettable never bores you; it just makes...
Amazingly, Rockin' does seem to contain most of the essential (and extremely danceable) Edmunds canon, from his first hit, "I Hear You Knocking"--hence the clever album title--to his hits with Rockpile (his acclaimed 1980 collaboration with Lowe) to his synthesizer era. As a result, there are few surprises on this album, in terms of its choice of songs and their journeyman renditions...