Word: magic
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...London, Expatriate Orson Welles began a new filmed TV series over the BBC. Called Orson Welles Sketch Book, the one-man show will feature Welles telling stories about bullfighting and black magic, or just chatting. None of the subjects seems capable of scaring the British as successfully as Welles did New Jerseyites with his Martian broadcast...
Winning Ways. Now he changed his tactics, decided to win his place "constitutionally." Rightly confident that there was voters' magic in the name Napoleon, Louis ran for the French presidency in 1848, won by comfortable millions. After swearing to uphold the Republic and constitution, he proceeded to ditch both, and in 1852 declared himself Emperor Napoleon...
Peter Junger's choral poem The Magic Circle, which proceded Corso's play, did not measure up. James Shucter's direction was extremely deft, and together with the precise and sometimes beautiful delivery of Peggy Polk, Nancy Curtis, Keith Gardiner, and Harold Scott, exploited well what the poem had to offer. But to me this was not a great deal. Junger's language is often musical and thrilling, but his images of fallen glory (grey Byzantium, the sleeping emperor, druids) and modern confusion (herds of taxis, flame-winged planes, departing stars) seemed little more than trite. At times...
...sweetness and light. Ravel: L'Enfant et les Sortileges (soloists, chorus and Suisse Romande Orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet; London). Collette's enchanting ballet-opera about an enchanted child, which Ravel reluctantly finished in 1925 after years of procrastination. The child is throwing a tantrum when the magic begins: the armchair (bass), clock (baritone), teapot (tenor), fire (coloratura soprano) come to life to terrify him into better behavior. Despite its size, the orchestra twiddles and tweaks lightly, and the tunes are often as naive as The King and I. Performance: a knockout. Von Weber: Four-Hand Piano Pieces...
...fall. Everything belongs to everybody; greed, hate and fear are gone with the trade winds, and love is as free as coconuts. This is for Rantz. Joyously he explains his bag of tricks-which may or may not symbolize civilization. The natives realize that instead of being dread magic and tools of humiliation, the Rantz line is really for laughs. Versatile Novelist Mankowitz, a scriptwriter, playwright and dealer in Wedgwood, is too soft a man for tough satire, and lets his shrewd observations on the human condition melt into sugary fantasy. In the end Laugh Till You Cry falls flat...