Word: loving
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this play marked an act of courage. Few people are familiar with it. Those with any knowledge of the plot have usually acquired it through one of the dozen or so operatic versions, chiefly Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor, Verdi's Falstaff, or Vaughan Williams' Sir John in Love. But the directors were willing to gamble (or gambol); and their slot (or slut) machine has come up with three cherries--a winning combination that ought to keep the box office coffers filled and the audience coughers silent...
...critics blame Shakespeare for not producing what he never had the slightest intention of producing. There is evidence that Queen Elizabeth I was so delighted with the character of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry IV that she commanded the writing of a play about Falstaff in love; and that, in compliance, Shakespeare wrote his Merry Wives in fourteen days, with nothing in mind but providing a joyous entertainment...
...Wives of the title (and, as Falstaff thinks, titular wives only) Nancy Marchand and Nancy Wickwire are properly merry. The latter (Mistress Ford) especially does some fresh things with her lines. For instance, when she is leading Falstaff on and tells him, "I fear you love Mistress Page," she raises the last name in pitch and volume as though in summons, whereupon Mistress Page pops into view by mistake. And Sada Thompson adds much to the humor of Mistress Quickly through a command of subtle inflections and timing...
...hunting for his green box turns into a frantic cat-and-mouse chase through double closet doors--an old gimmick, but still effective. When Falstaff says, "There's my purse," he reluctantly drops a small, silent pouch--obviously empty. The wives make a big point of exchanging the love letters to be sure each has the right one, when both letters are identical. Ford's "The clock gives me my cue" is accompanied by strokes on a cow-bell. When Falstaff is smuggled out in the laundry basket, the wives have to sidle along together to hide Falstaff's enormous...
...things to Jack. Perhaps the most important of these was to change the setting from a dingy room to a circus. The atmosphere of pure glitter and no meaning could not have fitted the situation better. The family of a clown strive first to make him admit to a love of hashed potatoes, and then to get married. This apparently signifies acceding to the ordinary world. Mr. Langella was excellent as Jack and Dorothy Gurvitz was outstanding as his sister. Karla Feinzig as the girl he is to marry was beautiful, but not terribly good in the crucial seduction scene...