Word: flashbacks
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...play does more than dabble in sentiment. It is wet with it. But Playwright Friel frequently and expertly applies the dry saving sponge of humor. Without O'Casey and Joyce, the play might have existed, but not so good a play. Friel utilizes reverie, flashback, and stream of consciousness, but his cleverest device is to divide Gareth O'Donnell into a public and private self played, respectively, by Patrick Bedford and Donal Donnelly. This palpable alter ego, invisible to the other characters, acts as a jazzy Greek chorus, a human pep pill, and a court jester. He laughs...
...must be admitted that the Loeb Experimental Theatre did an excellent job of production. The cast, headed by Peter Rousmaniere, Peter Morin, and John Mercer, all performed well, and occasionally with excellence. The minor flashback characters were good in spite of the brevity of their parts, with Farrell Page becomingly wistful in her short stint as The Banker's Beautiful (but now pregnant) Daughter. All the heroes were first-rate, with Doug Kenny particularly funny as gay Wild Bill. Other physical aspects of the production deserve credit, and certainly the direction can only be hailed as superb. The fault, then...
Life at the Top cannot quite make it alone either, and in one brief flashback Director Ted Kotcheff literally splices in a little Room for improvement-shots from the earlier film to establish nostalgia, most notably a tantalizing glimpse of Oscar Winner Simone Signoret retreating into the mist. A smoothly professional cast clips off the randy dialogue with an inexhaustible zest for every sign of moral decay in the life of a British provincial town. Yet a film as good as Room at the Top creates no valid curiosity about the further adventures of Joe Lampton, whose future was contained...
Someone also imported Titos Vandis, a fine Greek actor, to do a song and dance routine. Although his brief appearance might be enjoyable, this is not the Ed Sullivan show. Equally gratuitous are several characters used during the historical flashback scenes which, as a result, become overly involved and confusing. Hopefully some of the latter will be cut before Broadway, but then Mr. Lerner has a strange penchant for the period...
...turns out to be Carroll Baker, who dolls up many a flashback as Maharis treks across country jogging the memories of Viveca Lindfors, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Sothern and others. He learns that Sylvia was raped in Pittsburgh in her teens, drifted into prostitution in Mexico, developed a taste for book learning, and graduated to $100-a-night status as a Manhattan call girl employed by a transvestite panderer named Lola. Then a sadistic lover's $10,000 payoff permitted her "to acquire travel, Europe and culture." Finally face to face with his quarry, Maharis discovers that loose...