Word: halley
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...extraordinary talent of Ben Halley, Jr., so fully and wonderfully exploited in Big River shines very little in Angel City As Tympani Halley rolls his head wildly, concentrating on his quest for the perfect rhythm. But his energy is dulled, pulled down by the production's lethargy, John Bottoms as Rabbit is the worst offender, however, in the category of torpid A R T actors. I'm after power, "he whimpers, but the audience knows that all he needs is a good night's sleep...
...Halley, Jr. is superb as Jim, the runaway slave trying to raft his way into a free state. Jim's character is the only one that is developed beyond the two-dimensionality of the others. Resisting the temptation to condescend to his role or to the audience, Halley portrays a multi-faceted, complex character who is childlike and wise at once, evoking pathos without fishing for it. Were Huck as carefully developed and convincingly acted as Jim, the different episodes of the play would assume the coherence and interest that the production occasionally lacks...
Reagan, who had earlier slashed furiously at the space program and even canceled an unmanned rendezvous with Halley's comet, was apparently won over by two key points: 1) the increasing sophistication of the Soviet space effort, which has permitted cosmonauts to remain aboard their semipermanent Salyut space stations for as long as seven months at a time, and 2) the possible commercial payoff from a space station, notably manufactured goods far superior to any made under the tug of earthly gravity. Among them: ultrapure Pharmaceuticals, difficult-to-grow gallium arsenide crystals for microchips, alloys made of metals that...
...realistic, while the nuns wear stylized haloes--but with both costumes and set pieces, the whole lacks any recognizable greater design. Many of the more striking effects--fireworks in the last scene, the introduction of an enormous horse male out of two people, or the use of actor Ben Halley's falsetto--seem included merely because someone realized they were possible. The one exception is the music, written and directed for the show by William Uttley, which seemed to have been given considerable thought...
...production is full of independently satisfying results its music, visual effects, and acting. Of the minor characters, Ben Halley Jr. as the Provost, Jeremy Geidt as Escalus, and John Bottoms as Pompey turn in strong performances. But as a whole Andrei Belgrader's direction lacks a sufficiently strong vision of the play as a whole to dominate the individual elements and fuse them into a coherent interpretation, something intellectual satisfying rather than merely titillating...