Word: hanke
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...potent new album of barroom sermons. Yet the Last Outlaw of country music will get along somehow. His voice, after four decades of late nights and one-nights, has the moral authority of a man who's found mellow wisdom on hard roads. He tells us, in The Hank Williams Syndrome Is Dead, that it's better to trust an artist's songs than to imitate his misspent life. In Didn't We Shine? he administers balm to all lost loves: "But I've long ago forgiven you/ For what you did or didn't do." With these witty, poignant...
Pony Crocker (Morgan K. Nichols) is an untalented singer born to strict Mormons. He writes original songs, all of them about Jesus, and comes to New York after singing an amusingly disastrous proselytizing song in an elementary school. The final character, Hank Knox (Francis Henry), is the son of wealthy, influential parents. Hank is as emotionally secure as Priscilla is not. He is kind-hearted but confident to the point of overbearing arrogance...
...plot has the simplicity of a daytime drama: Margaret is overly repressed and unable to express her attraction to Mutt. Mutt expresses his desire for Margaret crudely in the beginning but refines his feelings as he gains maturity. Hank hires "Pris." Hank gives Pony his big break. Pris falls in love with Hank. Pony falls in love with Hank. Pris and Hank marry. Pris, who cannot deal with her own superfluity, feels that Hank is too whole as a person. Pony descends into cocaine and alcohol abuse. Pony grows to accept with Hank's inaccessibility, but never grows to accept...
Margaret and Mutt find common ground in the end, but the many of the characters remain unsatisfied at the play's conclusion--Hank isolated, Pony despairing and Pris only tenuously optimistic...
Natalie Rose, as Pris, is convincingly pathetic as a would-be writer, hysterically entertaining in her weakness. As Hank Knox, Henry delivers perhaps the most consistent performance. The role calls primarily for a straight face; Hank's most salient feature is his inability to relate to the other characters. His arrogance is tainted with just enough impending doom to make his character likable...