Word: heartbreaking
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...substitute for more complete characterization, and the constant action sometimes seems effected by too improbably contrivances. Though the atmosphere is consistent, the politics of the play are occasionally confused. It is perhaps this mixture of virtue and vices that have caused critics to make diametrically different judgments upon Heartbreak House. While some have pronounced it Shaw's best work, others have dismissed it as "tiresome...
Though the fantasia is perhaps not its author's best, it is hardly tiresome. The world of the play exudes an almost magical aura--one that is certain to attract critical attention, if not always praise. Casting the apocalytic spell, the Harvard Summer School Repertory Theater's rendition of Heartbreak House is unquestionably the Loeb's best production. The company seems to hit its stride with Shaw's difficult play. All the elements of theater--acting, directing, set and light and costume design--are functioning at their best in this third of three plays in repertory...
...Ariadne), equal the women in skill, if not charm. Terrence Currier and Bernard Frawley, both excellent in Moon for the Misbegotten, are again assets to the production as the charming prevaricator Hector Hushabye and Ellie Dunn's mild-mannered, yet understanding father Mazzini. Really all the inhabitants of Heartbreak House--except the industrialist who may represent the type that is leading Europe over the brink of disaster--manage to make themselves, as Ellie's father describes them, "very charming people, most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people." Yet as these...
...European civilization, an era marked by unprecedented industrial and material growth. They are then faced with the disharmonious fact that during this same period the arsenals and alliances were being created that made war inevitable. Reasons for this surface contradiction are bandied about in the last act of Heartbreak House. Hector suggests that the world has been neglected by people like themselves and entrusted to dangerously ignorant businessmen like Ellie's one-time fiancee, Boss Mangean. Ariadne thinks, less convincingly, that colonial autocrats like her husband ought to run the country with the same kind of free reign they have...
...bombs that fall that evening happen to miss Heartbreak House. The historical questions are asked and left unanswered in both the play and the production. Simply providing excellent acting, staging, and technical accouterments, the artists at the Loeb let the fantasia take care of itself--which it does very nicely. -Elizabeth Samuets