Word: duking
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Only One Pitch Left. In Yanks, Duke Bronkowski (Tony Lo Bianco) is on the mound, and he has shuddering intimations of mortality on that slab. He talks to himself continuously in an erratic monologue that is both manic and depressive: "Here I am 39 years old, and my hero is still Holden Caulfield." At the top of the seventh inning, the Duke is working on a no-hitter, but he has only one pitch left in his eroded repertory: a low slider. As he muses, in Archie Bunker fashion, on how much he detests the ethnic and racial back grounds...
...base runners sass the Duke relentlessly, and so does his apoplectic catcher, "Beanie" Maligima (Lou Crincuolo). The manager (Mitchell Jason) tries to psych the Duke back to his earlier form, but to no avail. A home run ball zooms over his head like a tracer bullet and murders him on the spot...
...play is as implausible as ever, but rarely has it been given a production of such marvelously sustained enchantment. Duke Orsino (Stephen Macht) is bewitched by the lovely Countess Olivia (Marti Maraden). She, in turn, falls madly in love with Cesario, who is really the shipwrecked Viola (Kathleen Widdoes) in male disguise. Before the plot is piloted to safe harbor, there are mistaken identities to be resolved, twin brother and sister to be reunited, true love's partners to be mated, and the lowbrow comic shenanigans of that Tweedledum-Tweedledee pair Sir Toby Belch (Leslie Yeo) and Sir Andrew...
...word is mendacity. In Measure for Measure, the key word is seem. Men seem to be what they are not. They delude themselves as to what they are. A form of the word appears in Act I, Scene 3, and it recurs like the tolling of a melancholy bell. Duke Vincentio (William Hutt) has decided to cede his authority for a while to his austere deputy, the rectitudinous Angelo (Brian Bedford). As the lordly duke dons monkish attire (he will seem to be a friar), he implies that he is testing Angelo: "Hence shall we see,/ If power change purpose...
Claudio prepares to die, but as he ponders the horrors of death, he begs Isabella to yield herself to Angelo. Thus he, too, is not what he seems, for any man of honor would prefer death to his sister's disgrace. Duke Vincentio finally returns to square these various accounts, "measure for measure," and give this sourish play an ambiguously happy ending. Yet, in his actions, the duke conclusively proves "what these our seemers be," for he has not really been interested in the goodly governance of the state but in his tricksterish manipulation of his subjects, both high...