Word: falstaffians
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There is more to Guilford than meets the eye, however, as Elwes is careful to point out in his interpretation of the character. Removed to the solitude of a country priory after his marriage to Jane, his formerly Falstaffian antics are revealed as a cover for his profound discontentedness at the current state of affairs in the country. His emotional grasp of the politico-economic situation complements Jane's intellectual ponderings--they are, as Guilford later points out, "two sides of the same coin...
Wicked irony dogged every turn of his career. If his theater magic had been preserved on film, Welles might be known today as a great actor-manager who also dabbled in movies. If the films had not been preserved, Welles' trim exuberance would not have so cuttingly mocked the Falstaffian corpulence of his maturity. One generation knows him as the brilliant light that Hollywood failed and as the guy Rita Hayworth married before Aly Khan. Another generation thinks of him as a wine salesman, ballast at a Dean Martin Roast table and butt of Johnny Carson's "fat" jokes...
...Chicago Biographer Alzina Stone Dale indicates in her spirited biography, Chesterton doted on paradox. The lover of tradition was a radical populist; the Falstaffian clown was a deeply committed intellectual; the friend of such freethinkers as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells converted to Roman Catholicism at 48, and thereafter engaged in eloquent public debates with his colleagues...
...Dutch Calvinists sets out for Cape Town. The tiny white minority see themselves as a new chosen people, driven by religious fervor and economic distress. By the 19th century their descendants have become as rooted, as various and as melodramatic as the land. Villet brings them all onstage: the Falstaffian "Oom Paul" Kruger, grandfather to 120, opponent of natives on one hand and Victorian imperialists on the other; Schalk van Niekerk, owner of a "blinklippie," a stone that turns out to be the 83-carat Star of Africa diamond; the Struben brothers, who strike one of the world...
...Orchis (Tenor Michael Fiacco), whose threatening nature is underlined by a snap-pizzicato line in the low strings; a good-natured, bibulous ensemble lauding the joys of wine. In his handling of the choruses, Rochberg is especially skillful; indeed the final chorus, extolling the virtue of confidence, recalls the Falstaffian spirit of Verdi. For the interpolated minstrel show-the liveliest and dramatically most effective scene, although almost entirely unrelated to the rest of the work-Rochberg has composed memorably effervescent mock folk music...