Word: fixit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...acting as Big Daddy to all the others. Does the divorcee fear an old lover's return? Speak to her, John. Does Willy, the Dachau victim, seem about to go under in private gloom? Have a word with Willy, John. But the role of father-confessor plus Mr. Fixit is really a trial to him. He is having troubles of his own as he is trying to dodge an old mistress to devote his repressed, puritan self to the torturing game he plays with Kate. Author Murdoch knows her lovers through and through, and can prove with almost careless...
...either. Michael Flanders, archetype of Shavian urbanity (imagine Peter Ustinov impersonating Tom Lehrer), and Donald Swann, a mad leprechaun escaped from some Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society (imagine Arthur Schlesinger impersonating Peter Pan) still jesting and warbling about Wilson and De Gaulle, dieting and astrology, parking problems and fixit-men. They are topical satirists, yes, and still provide a wonderfully pleasant show, but they might almost have performed this review back then, or their first one now; for their "time-liness" is tuned only to a decade. As in most modish, ultra-civilized company, there's a charming irrelevance...
...rescue Touch from the usual family conflict study. One is its humor; the other, some exceptionally good characterizations which are performed extremely well. The humor is apparent even from the opening of the play when the downstairs toilet is reported out of commission. When Ruth complains about her bladder, fixit husband Jack suggests a milk bottle and retorts, "Learn to aim. I have." But after a great deal of water sloshing in buckets the crisis is resolved. Characterizations are often achieved through a single line. When Ruth speaks of herself as cultered she says, "Red wine with meat and white...
...Fixit...
This local-level "Mr. Fixit," as Gellhorn calls him, would have some serious immediate problems to deal with...