Word: landiss
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...play, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. is about Harvard's own Henry David Thoreau (played by Greg Landiss, a second year Harvard law student) and his decision to rejoin society. Thoreau has been arrested for with olding tax payments which would finance weapons used in the Mexican War. The night in jail is a turning point for Thoreau who, at age 29, is about to exchange his life of withdrawal for a life of social activism...
...good job of playing an aging Ralph Waldo Emerson. Augustine Caimi '79, as Thoreau's cellmate, and John Newport '78, as Thoreau's brother, put on fine performances as well. But the nature of the play demands that the portrayal of Thoreau be executed with perfection-and though Landiss is very good in some scenes, his acting is far from faultless...
...Landiss's main problem is that he overacts-perhps at Pullum's insistence. Certain scenes reach an emotional level which is entirely too high. The play seems to peak every five minutes, leaving the audience on a lurching roller coaster. And Landiss's method of attaining these misplaced emotional peaks is awkward. It is as though someone told him the only thing an actor can do to increase intensity is talk faster or louder or both. Landiss fails to realize that in many scenes a well-placed whisper can be more effective than an ear-shattering, rapid-fire sequence...
Perhaps Thoreau was a kinetic, hyper-active, easily excited individual who bellowed at the top of his lungs at the drop of a hat and treated every other word he uttered as though it was destined to be chiseled in granite. Perhaps Landiss and Pullum have captured the essence of the man on stage, I don't know. But a calmer, more subtle, more contemplative characterization would probably be more effective in portraying the gentle man who could live by himself for nearly two years on the bank of a New England pond...
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