Word: hudd
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...flashlight stabbed into the blackness of New Orleans' George Washington School, picking out the hudd'ed figures, mostly Negroes, who were standing, sitting, or sleeping on the hallway floor. Occasionally he would aim the light at his own face, so that the people would recognize him. Some didn't believe their eyes. "That's not the President," whispered one voice. "He wouldn't come down here...
...Room takes place in the cozy, mangy flat of Mr. and Mrs. Hudd. Mrs. Hudd (Frances Sternhagen) tongue-rattles along at a great rate-about the icy weather through which her husband (Clarence Felder) must drive his van, about the unoccupied basement apartment she fears is occupied, about the tea and toast and trivia that mortise daily life. The landlord, who may not be the landlord, enters and reminisces about his mother and sister, who may or may not have been Jewish. After the landlord and the husband depart, a young apartment-hunting couple intrude with the disconcerting news that...
Agitatedly, the landlord reappears to tell Mrs. Hudd that a man in a darkened room in the basement demands to see her. The man proves to be a blind Negro (Robertearl Jones) who begs her to come home and implies that he is her father. Mr. Hudd returns, savagely batters the Negro to the floor, and as the curtain starts to drop, Mrs. Hudd turns blind. There are no safe guesses when it comes to Pinter, but a half-safe guess is that the blind Negro is Death or Fate, the ultimate invaders of cozy islands of tranquillity...
...Hudds' haven cracks slightly when Mr. Kidd, their senile landlord, half-remembers that their apartment used to be his bedroom. Then a man and his wife looking for lodging threaten to rent the Hudds' room; and a blind Negro who had been living in the cellar asks Mrs. Hudd to come back to a mysterious unsavory past, to her home. Like The Dumbwaiter, the play ends with a grotesque shock...
...Lane makes excellent use of her plastic features and voice to characterize Mrs. Hudd. Slowly her voluble good spirits curdle into nervousness and sorrow. Ed Finnegan also gives an outstanding performance, musing and whining with great finesse as the elderly Mr. Kidd. Dustin Hoffman plays Mr. Hudd with realistic stolidness. The other parts are handled skillfully by Paul Benedicts, Vera Lee, and Lester Gilmore...