Word: final
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...which this play was invested it could never have survived for three hours. It has often been noted, that it is very hard to swallow Falstaff's incredible obtuseness. In part we are meant to lay it up to lust; for this he is burnt by candles in the final scene...
...Terry Hands amplified it. Falstaff fled up a tree and looked down in horror at the invasion of fairies below him. A torch was set in the tree beneath him, and an ensuing, very loud explosion threw him from the tree ten feet to the ground. This gave the final scene both an additional element of farce, and a mystery which partially vindicated the absurdity of Falstaff's last humiliation...
...final note on interaction of character. Falstaff's mere presence is a danger and Hands's Ford was largely successful in averting it by drawing the play's energy into his transformation. Before he changes he can be quite funny; his interviews with Falstaff were particularly well done. One saw the carefully composed Mr. Brooke (Ford) presenting a nicely Falstaffian proposition; meanwhile, Falstaff relished his possibilities and promising success, while Ford inwardly rebelled and very nearly lost his composure...
Nunn set the scene in the half-light and intermittent flashes of the storm, and had a huge (about 12 feet tall) and very realistic bear rise out of the blackness behind Antigonus, pick him bodily up, and carry him off, the final action drowned in a scream of loud and hopeless terror, amplified, so that it reverberated in the ear drums. The whole thing was terrifying and convincing, as it should be. The switch, then, to the Shepherd and his son the Clown, was entirely in keeping with the Shepherd's words...
...Opposition for the Crimson in later rounds of the national final is beginning to take shape. On Saturday, Hartwick College came from two goals behind in the first round to edge N.Y.U.. 1-3. in the NCAA District 2 championship...