Word: comics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...problem in George Hamlin's current production is that the comic scenes, marked by both bravura acting and a careful attention to detail, come to represent "all the world," while the court scenes, marked by all too pregnant pregnant pauses and constant upstaging, represent nothing so much as the players' own simple-minded political maneuvers. Through this serious chink in the production's armor, one can glimpse the basic weakness of the play; in this dramatic as in the political world position triumphs over character...
Every element in the Loeb production conspires to undercut the play's serious intention. As if taking the cue from Donald Soule's unbalanced set design, which places the richly-colored tavern hearth flush against the dry burlap of symmetrical castle towers, the comic scenes, appearing in the midst of the serious, only seem to mock them. The peak of this production is reached when Falstaff, balancing his weight on a chair balanced on a table top, wearing a pillow on his head as crown, chastises Hal in mimicry of his father, the king. Even at the climax...
...numerous technical difficulties that reveal the weakness at the heart of his production. Instead, just as the progress of the prince from tavern to court expresses the theme of the play, so Jonathan Emerson's performance as Hal points up the lesson at the Loeb. Emerson handles his comic scenes skillfully, lolling drunkenly onstage, stingingly imitating Hotspur and his lady Percy, and showing, as when he helps the helpless Falstaff into his boots, a tender and subtle shift of mood. But when confronted with a serious scene, Emerson abandons his character to the exigencies of position. So, when reprimanded...
...young seem to have a monopoly on wisdom. The teen-agers of Happy Days and Soap, as well as the young adults of Laverne & Shirley and Three's Company, are forever outwitting their elders, whether parents or employers or landlords. This fantasy is not without its comic rewards. In the '50s, Father Knows Best concluded with an Eisenhower-like Robert Young counseling his children about the wages of maturity. Now the same sermons are delivered with far more panache at the end of Happy Days by Fonzie, the dropout greaser. Only on Family are parents still role models...
...gondoliers' wives (Katherine Kean and Mary Jane Robbins) have more comic personalities. Their physical appearances cor trasting well, the two have the luck to wear with elan honeymoon negligees that would--well, that would never be seen on the body of a Cosmo Girl...