Word: hancock
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Half the play is devoted to Grusha, and Grusha winds up as half a character. When Director John Hancock was analyzing her during the Loeb production, he charted fourteen "good" traits, which read like the Boy Scout Oath, and one fault (she lost he temper readily). Brecht's failure to elevate Grusha above generic goodness is particularly telling since he conceived the play in order to write a special part for Luisa Rainer, an expatriate German actress. His failure exemplifies the weakness invariably cited by the Communist critics: Brecht could create noble agitators and good proletarians, but never a flesh...
With small offices alone, the building might produce one traffic pattern, he pointed out. An insurance company like John Hancock, with thousands of girls, would probably produce another. "The end product is a puzzle...
...that is my only quibble with Mr. Hancock. His direction was otherwise an inspired and faithful interpretation of Brechtian techniques, for which the Loeb is well suited. Titles are flashed on a curtain covering the lower half of the stage; an enormous revolve turns as Grusha and the soldiers march; music comes from offstage to accompany the songs; and scenery is moved in a public and unabashed way. The tension between the formality of the staging and the tenderness of the story makes for Brecht's tough beauty, and Hancock understood and used it with joyful discrimination...
...relatively minor actors also gave outstanding performances--Jean Weston as the prim and vicious governor's wife and Robert P. Youngsberg as the loutish corporal. Brecht displayed his discretion in not giving the little prince any speaking lines, and Mr. Hancock displayed his in choosing a beautiful urchin to play the role...
...intend to see The Caucasian Chalk Circle a second time and hope to see a good deal more of both Brecht and Hancock around here...