Word: lahr
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Playwright Arthur Kopit and author John Lahr, son of Bert Lahr, both scheduled to give speeches at the Quiney House Arts Festival at 8 p. m. last night, instead disappeared into the street with their wives...
...Several evenings will be devoted to drama symposiums, led by playwrights and their critics. Arthur Copit-whose recent play, Indians, jarred audiences into confronting the vast discrepancy between the myth and reality of America's treatment of the Indian-will debate with Evergreen and Village Voice critic John Lahr. Lahr's recent biography, Notes On A Cowardly Lion, has made a camp hero of his father, Bert Lahr, and helped to cause the enormously-popular revival of Alice In Wonderland, to the delight of Bert Lahr fans everywhere. Kopit wrote and produced Oh Dad Poor Dad while still at Harvard...
...troupe has pioneered a new mode of theatrical presentation-while those more closely attuned to the proscenium stage may enjoy the opportunity to hear playwrights Charles Gordone (No Place To Be Somebody), Arthur Kopit (Indians), and Lillian Hellman (Toys in the Attic), or Village Voice Drama Critic John Lahr discuss their work...
There is no glossing over the facts of Lahr's private life, for instance. But it is so flecked with tragedy as to seem almost unreal. This is how it went: At the start, a poor Bronx childhood, dropout from school, succession of odd jobs and petty thieving. Then Lahr tries burlesque just for fun and is hooked ("I would have done 20 shows a day. It was like a shot of -dope? Adrenalin?"). He rises to vaudeville, lives with and eventually marries his act partner, reaches Broadway while at home his wife is going insane ("She laughed...
This chronicle is often retrieved from corniness by touching moments and memories that allow young Lahr to mold humanity around the trite-tragic skeleton that his father's life seems to have been. For instance, there is Lahr as a budding vaudevillian putting makeup on his collar even when unemployed so everyone will know he is in show biz. One is touched by the physical fact that his left wrist was permanently larger than the right from breaking repeated pratfalls. And a fine moment comes when a wino outside the theater holds out a dollar saying "Here, Bert...