Word: ganged
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When she describes a sensuous experience, like going swimming, Hellman reaches for her Hemingway: "The water was the right temperature, everything was good, everything was better." She has kept a large vocabulary out of Dashiell Hammett, her longtime companion, and gang ster films. "Stuff' and "junk" are all-purpose nouns; a restaurant is a "steak joint" or a "fish dump...
...spread-eagled--sitting at dining-hall tables while fellow students boast of Combat Zone conquests. Think ok? The crowning indignity is when this trash occurs in your own home, when Quincy House shows porno flicks and when you cannot open the Crimson without being subjected to someone's gang rape fantasies: "they could take her together, there were orifices enough for all in the land of plenty...
...play tells of a Salvation Army lieutenant's wooing of a hardened but unhappy gangster. Their love causes Bill Cracker to fall afoul of the gang's sinister leader, the Fly, and results in Sister Lillian's expulsion in disgrace from the Army. Through a series of predictable and improbable coincidences, all are reunited and forgiven, and the two camps join hands to form an army of the poor to fight the "real enemy"--capitalism...
Director Walton Jones milks every bit of humor from Michael Feingold's adaptation of the clever, pat script. He mocks the cliched plot, deliberately parodying the stylized, silent-movie romance/thriller. Curlicued subtitles announce songs and significant moments; when the gang rob the bank, the lights flash on and off, simulating the flickering early movies. A few touches are a bit cloying--the Fly as telephone operator, for example--but Happy End contains many slyly comic moments. Jones mounts a polished production; the actors sustain a rapid pace that admirably suits his comic intent. Uniformly excellent acting ensures the play...
While Happy End is not--and should not necessarily be--a Threepenny Opera, Brecht and Weill's songs suggest that Happy End could have another face. The gang's pettiness and cowardice, the naivete and condescension of the Salvation Army sermons, Bill's amorality, Lil's sexuality--these elements of Feingold's adaptation should have been emphasized in the production. The Brecht and Weill characters, as revealed in their songs, are not the cute bumblers of Jones' production. The two paint a much crueler, darker world, a world in which the little guys squander their energies fighting each other instead...