Word: comics
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...real problem with the Leverett production is at the same time one of its great strengths: Smith chooses to omit the entire comic subplot of the play written by collaborator William Rowley (without which the title is nearly meaningless). This leaves the play almost unbelievably short--the whole thing takes an hour-and-a-half, including a 15-minute intermission and scene changes. Along with the director's rapid-fire pacing of the scenes, this insures that The Changeling won't give audiences an overdose of post-Shakespearean blank verse--which most of the actors cope well with anyway...
Bereft of these comic scenes, the Leverett show was free to be a brief but potent spectacle of violent tragedy. Instead the performers seen to feel they have to make up for the comedy lost when the subplot was cut. In the process they dilute the effectiveness of the best melodramatic scenes...
Peter Stein as a bawd gives one of the best performances of the evening. He had oily charm and a comic ability to keep his head when those about are losing theirs. Stein's Pompey is an ordinary fellow but for the faint stench of evil about him. He is funny without being simple...
Wilde ultimately resists capture on the stage because his essence is his quicksilver mentality. The equations that produced his comic paradoxes are different from, but no less elusive than the equations that sprang from the mind of Einstein. One irony that might have amused Wilde is that for less than the price of two tickets at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theater, one can purchase all of his works in paperback, and enjoy them for a thousand and one nights...
...fifth and sixth singles provided a little comic relief, as Kevin Shaw and Greg Kirsch robbed their opponents of all but five games. Shaw humbled Allen Barnes at live, 6-3, 6-0, and what can you say about Kirsch's 2-and-0 victory over a guy named--get this--Evan Bash...