Word: comic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...COMIC STREAK spikes the play, and often parodies the deathly drama Heurtebise, being an angel, is fairly immune to tragedy, so he can draw laughter without seeming indiscreet. When Orpheus returns from hell, the angel hustles to his side in breathless anticipation, exclaiming that he's "dying to hear about your trip!" Some of Heurtebise's lines could easily fall flat when the humor wanes transparent, but A.S. Birsh never leaves you in doubt as to his character's utter naivete, and the risky bits slip by quite smoothly...
...least once, however, the comic play on words has been diluted by Jennifer Marre's translation. Eurydice first suspects Heurtebise of supernatural qualities when she spies him hanging in mid-air, and demands that he explain this "miracle." To calm her he comments that "Things do lie at times. At the fair I saw a naked woman walking along the ceiling." But, she retorts, "This was not done with mirrors." Cocteau's French text has her say that the feat has "nothing to do with a machine." Machines, in this case, suggest the surreal aspects of the play more directly...
...lips into a little pout when she's not talking--as though keeping still annoys her. She portrays a charming wife, whose dialogue compensates for her insipidity. Admittedly, there's not much time in this snatch of a story for nuance in personalities. Perhaps that's why the comic characters come off best--they each have a bundle of idiosyncrasies to lean on. Heurtebise, clad in blue overalls, shuffles around in a loose-ankled, slightly pigeon-toed walk, with his hands clasped tightly against his waist. The unworldly astonishment never fades from his pudgy face. A natty clerk displays...
...simply writing most of the songs in the show, bounces around as a rolly-polly pair of twins, cornering the laugh market whenever he rolls on stage. Only Harriet Kittner, who doubles as Tom Mix, the bartender, and Clementine, the supposedly dead heiress, lacks the lines to develop her comic expertise. As Clementine, the theoretical heroine who falls short of that role because the authors spent so much time developing the surfelt of leading characters. Kittner must restrain her comic abilities. She supplants here talent with an out-of-character solemnity that makes the audience feel gypped out of seeing...
...conducted plot, then maybe he would have been able to work in the type of situation comedy that need not rely on HLS chumminess to get the laughs. But as it is now, you have to pan through a river of plot lines just to pick out a few comic nuggets...