Word: comics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...People's Almanac was a publishing coup brought off by Irving and David last year. While most reference books go on the shelf, this one was off the wall. Its 1,478 pages included biographies of comic-book characters, every obscure fact and factoid that could be assembled-and a series of unique lists ("15 renowned redheads," "nine breeds of dog that bite the most"). It was this section that proved the Almanac's most popular category...
...attitudinizing, and its plot is powered by the usual sort of Gilbertian paradox--in this case, an identification of love with duty which brands the love of anything worth loving as undutiful. But it lacks the consistently memorable score that distinguishes Pirates of Penzance, for example, or the brilliant comic sequences which make Iolanthea favorite...
...encomiums are harder to parcel out. Linda Greenbaum, as the Lady Ella, has an unusually winning voice, and Stephen Montgomery as the extremely eligible Duke of Dunstable sings in a rich, clear tenor. As Major Murgatroyd, David Brown stumbles out of step, mugs and affects a Cockney accent with comic virtuosity. On the other hand, Jeanette Worthen's characterization of the irksome Lady Jane, who clings to Reginald when the rest of his admirers have deserted him for Archibald, is blunted by an annoying hamminess...
Patienceis not a bad show. What is missing is simply the excitement, the sense of surprise, which pushes a production past competence to memorability. Still, only a constant straining after what is not there-the laughs that never materialize, the comic peaks which remain plateaus--obscures the very real virtues of what remains; and it was, after all, partly to mock this idealist yearning for the unattainable, as well as its various exponents, that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote Patiencein the first place...
Bellow's Henderson is a man of vast comic incongruity. Kirchner's hero (even though splendidly performed by Bass Ara Berberian) is a one-dimensional klutz. The pity is that there is so much good music in Lily - the Bartokian orchestral evocation of the jungle, the sweet, pristine chants of the natives, the often amusing coloratura chirping of Lily (Susan Belling...