Word: falstaff
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Previously, H. Lane Blackwell, Jr. '39 had delivered the Ivy Oration to which President Conant referred, remarking that: "The Chief Marshal, Mr. Saltonstall, can speak for himself, but as far as I am concerned I can but repeat Falstaff's remark that while I, myself, am not funny, I am often times a source of with in other men. The Ivy Orator has proved that this afternoon...
...itself or as connective tissue. Even so, were the chronicle plays concerned solely with martial and kingly events, their torso might provide a kind of splendid theatrical pageant. But the chronicle plays do not lend themselves to mere pageantry, for in addition to the huge comic figure of Falstaff, they contain scene after scene of intrigue, domestic life, psychological conflict...
...What might have been a tour de force jumps so fast from one thing to another as to be a non sequitur de force. Often good theatre, it is never good drama, just as Welles's portrayal of the fat knight is often good fun but seldom good Falstaff. Played on a twelve-part revolving stage that keeps circling like a Lazy Susan on a breakfast table, Five Kings is fatally shorn of all stage illusion...
Omitting such a famous scene as Falstaff shamming dead, such a famous character as Owen Glendower, such a famous speech as Henry IV's expostulation to sleep ("Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"), Five Kings "covers" Shakespeare as a two-day Cook's Tour would cover England...
...Visit Mistress Quickly's Inn. See Falstaff, Prince Hal, Bardolph, Poins...