Word: falstaff
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...past few years the American Shakespeare Festival has presented the first, second, and fourth play in the tetralogy. This year it has opened its twelfth season by turning to the third and least often performed. But, despite the highly commendable Falstaff of Jerome Kilty, the gap is not really being filled: there is too much directorial and thespian ineptitude surrounding the fat knight...
...hint of trouble came with the announcement that director Joseph Anthony had retitled the play Falstaff. Now it is true that in Shakespeare's own lifetime the play was occasionally thus designated. And it is just as true that Falstaff is indeed the work's foremost figure. By this criterion we ought to turn Julius Caesar into Brutus, Cymbeline into Imogen, and The Merchant of Venice into Shylock...
...fourth-longest play in the canon. Anthony decided on a running time of two-and-a-half hours, and did a good deal of cutting. A sizeable number of characters have been eliminated entirely. Anthony has cut the epilogue, and altered the ending a bit to leave the banished Falstaff all alone repeating over and over to himself, "I shall be sent for tonight . . . tonight . . . tonight...
...ever purer than Adhemar de Barros. His jutting profile, immense belly, and expansive grandstand manner were pure Falstaff. His snake-charming baritone and God-fearing homilies were pure medicine show. His pork-barrel pilfering as three-time Governor of São Paulo, Latin America's greatest industrial state, was pure Tammany. He once fled the country to escape a jail sentence for misappropriating public funds, and he seemed almost proud to be known as the politician who "builds while he steals...
Orson Welles, looking puffy, overblown and overweight, exhibited Chimes and Midnight, a lively film that he directed and wrote with the help of William Shakespeare, who supplied the chief character: Falstaff, played by Welles. Through the centuries, most actors have had to stuff padding under their tights to play the renowned clown. Welles, at 51, remains unique; he is probably the first actor in history who appears too fat for the role...