Word: dolls
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Offstage, she is a piquant rag doll with huge blue eyes fringed with black lashes. Her face reflects the determination to survive in a profession that allows no respite: "If I miss one day of dancing, I can feel it." At age 15, after she had entered George Balanchine's New York City Ballet, Gelsey developed tendinitis. By the time Mr. B. selected her to dance in Firebird two years later, dancing had become unbearably painful. "I had forced a great deal." She almost gave up. Instead, in an effort comparable to Rubinstein's retraining himself...
Monkey Business. It's gotten so that I don't like to watch the Marx Brothers M-G-M extravaganzas anymore, with their water-ballets and cupie-doll tenor heroes thrown in among the more or less emasculated brothers. So Monkey Business from the tacky Paramount days comes as blessed relief, reaffirmation and so on. It is wonderful. This is the one where Groucho, Chico and most importantly Harpo all do imitations of Maurice Chevalier singing "Eef a Nightengale Cood Sin Lak You" and where Grouch announces that "love goes out the door when money comes innuendo". The script...
...including Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg playing together with the finesse of the Lunts in The Misanthrope, John Wood portraying a rapier-sharp Sherlock Holmes, Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth in the psychological tour de force Equus. Even Liv Ullmann turned up, though in a disappointing production of A Doll's House; her presence gave the season an extra glow...
...supporting cast cannot save A Doll's House if the Nora buckles. Still, this cast might be sued for nonsupport. With no trace of a guiding hand from Norwegian Director Tormod Skagestad, the players appear to be introducing themselves to each other at first rehearsal. As Torvald, Waterston is a mildly ruffled porcupine who can be dequilled instantly by Ullmann. Petty or not, Torvald should be a visible tyrant. After all, Nora is not slamming the door at middle-level management, but at the historic tyranny of convention...
Though it is an aesthetic dud, A Doll's House is a sold-out hit for its seven-week run. Joseph Papp engineered it that way by settling for star power. This is faintly amusing considering his long and loud castigations of Broadway commercialism. Too bad he didn't consult a Broadway producer before casting the play. ∙T.E.Kalem