Word: hamme
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...long list of demands. New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who reports a surplus of $207 million, is designing a broad tax-reform plan that will include income tax reductions. In California, Governor George Deukmejian plans to pump money into education, highway construction and environmental projects. Says William Hamm, an analyst for California's legislature: "It's difficult to build reserves when times are bad, but it's hard to justify them to the public when they get too large...
Since Reagan's cuts are bound to affect the coffers of every state, officials are trying to use their ingenuity to soften the blow. Says California Analyst Hamm: "It's not realistic for us to say [to Washington], 'Don't touch us, but get rid of the deficits.' We should be asking ourselves, 'What can we give up that will hurt us the least?' " -By Jacob V. Lamar Jr. Reported by Patricia Delaney/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles, with other bureaus
Unfortunately, Akalaitis' re-interpretation loses some of the values of Beckett's conception. Hamm, looking like a Rastafarian king on his throne, lacks the self-consciousness befitting lines like, "An aside, Ape! Did you never hear an aside." Even the phrasing of that line suggests a more cultivated mind, acutely aware of his dramatic presence. Although Beckett's characters are painfully aware of their calculated, verbal chess match, Akalaitis' flail at each other in fits of rage. A more cold-blooded conversation would make Hamm's torture of Clov seem more horrifyingly vicious and his occasional displays of genuine emotion...
...multiple light sources, off-stage voices, incidental music, and those moments when Hamm and Clov overlap lines to create unintelligible gibberish all distract from the finely honed intensity of the play. Philip Glass's excellent score only works when the thundering drums and manic melody suddenly halt in the deathly silence that opens the show...
...compelling version of this great play. It is funny, full of an ironic humor that makes its profundity palatable and insidiously convincing. It is frightening, describing a world that has run out of bicycles, sweet-plums, coffins, pain-killer, honor, time, and God. After a futile attempt at prayer, Hamm screams, "Bastard! He doesn't exist." It shows mankind, having walked to the edge of the plank, hesitate before the leap that threatens oblivion or promises a new beginning...