Word: druten
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Oscar Hammerstein II shown composing a new song, a process which, in this version, consists chiefly of Hammerstein complaining that he cannot think of any words, and Rodgers saying soothingly, "It will come, Oscar, it will come"; Joshua (South Pacific) Logan and John (The King and I) Van Druten directing, and looking as nervous as Men of Distinction who have misplaced their highballs; Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer having a chat about the merits of triple-decker sandwiches (Rex is for, Lilli against...
...eagerness which parodies the mannerisms of Julie Harris, his performance is a long dull thud from beginning to end. In fact, with Mr. Cooper tossing off his lines with the delicacy of a shot-putter, his soliloquies offer the most painful moments in the current theatre. Since John Van Druten's script has Isherwood on the stage almost every second of the play, the result is pretty appalling...
While Mr. Cooper's limited talent is a great liability, it would take remarkable skill to make the role of Isherwood meaningful, or even to justify its prominence in the play. Adapting Isherwood's Berlin Stories for the stage, Van Druten has tried to transcribe not only the characters, but the form of the stories as well, with Isherwood the passive observer of Berlin life in the thirties. As the chronicler of the life around him, the Isherwood of the book can afford to be passive, "a camera, with shutter open." As a character in a play, however, the same...
With little pretense of plot, I Am a Camera tries to reproduce Isherwood's impressionistic picture of a decadent city. Essentially, however, the play is no more than a character sketch of the memorable Sally Bowles. Van Druten's efforts to dramatize other elements of Isherwood's portrait--particularly the plight of Jews in a Germany rotting with Naziism--are remarkably unimaginative. And less significant diversions--the American millionaire, the comic landlady--are written and played as stereotypes. Because of Julie Harris, however, I Am a Camera successfully captures the Sally of the Berlin Stories. The immature, flambouyant nymphomaniac steps...
...Feel. She credits Joshua Logan with steering her away from a too hasty assault on Broadway. He advised: "Get the feel of an audience again. Listen to it. Practice on the road and see what comes of it." Rosalind went on tour in John van Druten's Bell, Book and Candle. The reviews were consistently good, but she thinks she was terrible for the first three months: "I'd become sluggish working with the camera. The stage demands that you use 42 new muscles and you can't let down for one minute." After three months...