Word: danton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Perhaps it is because John Williams tried both to direct and to play the lead that Danton's Death seems so unfocused. In fairness to him it should be said that he didn't want to. And he certainly hasn't structured the production to show himself off. In fact, that may be part of the trouble. In any case, the play is dull...
George Buechner wrote Danton when he was 21, and with all the grandiosity one would expect of a young German fatalist and revolutionary. Pronouncements follow epigrams in endless, dulling sequence. In Mueller's translation, at least, it is hard to believe that the characters could be taking themselves seriously. There is almost no psychological exposition more subtle than Danton's announcement that he is bored with the Revolution, or Collot D'Herbois' mechanical callousness...
...comes from a lack of perspective on Williams' part. Directing himself, he must not have seen what wasn't working. His own performance is suitably ironic, suitably loud. But he never builds to any turning point. It is easy to miss some of his crucial lines. If Williams meant Danton to seem to be playing a role, he almost succeeded. But he never gives us a patch of sincerity to contrast the act with. Even in the lovely prison soliloquy, Danton's character remains ambiguous...
...reliance on diction and neglect of theatricality that makes Danton a bore. No one's timing is good. The guillotining scene is no more than a babble of voices; Herault-Sechelles' last line is almost lost. Danton's is. The skillful performances of Chapman and Miss Esterman must be enjoyed without relation to the rest of the play...
...years after the end of World War II. Maxime (Charles D. Gray), a rich aristocratic rightist, decides to hold a wig party in a Gothic catacomb of a cellar. All his guests are to come as leading figures of the Revolution. Maxime himself plays Saint-Just. Other friends play Danton, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI ("virtually a nonspeaking role") and the Comte de Mirabeau. The butt of the party is to be Bitos (Donald Pleasence), the local deputy prosecutor, an ex-classmate of Maxime's and the son of a washerwoman. He comes as Robespierre...