Word: hand
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...with a "real" character, a pubescent boy named Ambrose. Ambrose goes to a seaside amusement park with his family, and there he gets lost in the funhouse. We are not sure if he really gets lost in the funhouse because we are made constantly aware of the author's hand pushing his characters around. Does Ambrose get lost, or does Barth make him get lost, or does Barth speculate about making him get lost? It is impossible to tell, which may be what the author is driving...
...idea gone wrong." Such a show, through its total ineptitude, can often be very funny. (A knowledgeable friend of mine who saw Kelly's one and only Broadway performance counts it among the most hilarious evenings he's ever spent in a theatre.) A failure, on the other hand, is a good idea gone wrong. It's usually boring...
...Pierrepont Finch from nowhere to family and fortune, aided by a get-rich-quick book plus a bravely installed deus ex machina. This time around, one Pope Brock gives life to Finch, and he does so with a modicum of class. Brighter lights, on the other hand, shine to every side, not the least of which is Timothy Hall as J. B. Biggley, the boss of World-Wide Wickets where Finch is employed. Hall handles a considerably larger portion of the show's laughs than did Rudy Vallee in the B'way original, partly because of the competition but also...
Josh Rubins, the director, appears to have distributed his time and energy so evenly among the show's various departments, that a central hand is nowhere particularly evident. The blocking and pacing lack discipline, but the cast had obvious technical difficulties, like falling flats, to contend with last night, so maybe matters will improve ere long. Whether or no, idle visions and foolish comparisons aside, they've got a good thing going...
PART of the problem lies in the treatment of the subject. Lester didn't set out to depict the Beatles' world as it really is, but largely created a wacky life-style for them that would be novel for the audience. Feinstein, on the other hand, simply shows us hip youth as it is. This could be fun if we weren't already familiar with this terrain. But we've seen or even lived what he shows ourselves; nothing in You Are What You Eat is new or exciting. Since the film has no characters, there is no personal story...