Word: malvolio
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...errors continue to pile up. Messrs. Smith (Sir Toby) and Whitehead (Sir Andrew) insist on accenting "exquisite" on the second syllable; and their extended byplay with a bath-towel completely distracts from Malvolio's crucial letter-reading scene. As Malvolio, Richard Waring--as fine a classical speaker as any actor in the company--is vastly over-directed in his climactic cross-garter scene. One of the points of this scene is that Olivia abhors the color of yellow, yet she keeps training in and out carrying a yellow rose. After her marriage, reference is made to her wedding ring...
...theaters, tents and schoolrooms of every land, wherever the sun sets and curtains rise, Falstaff struts with his gorbellied wit, Bottom bumbles through the woods, and wide-eyed Ophelia trembles before Hamlet's abuse. Malvolio preens like a toad in yellow stockings. Hotspur wells blood. In soliloquy and song, in bantering bawdry and scalp-tingling rhetoric, in the kingliest English and in tender or rough translation, they speak to man from mankind's heart. Never in the nearly 400 years since their creator was born have Shakespeare's characters spoken to so many, or meant so much...
...settled on Twelfth Night and engaged the imaginative Herbert Berghof as director. Berghof, in keeping with the festive occasion, decided to turn the play into a "music and dance extravaganza." He employed as much music as possible, composed or arranged in neo-Elizabethan style by Andre Singer. He interpreted Malvolio's phrase, "the fool's zanies," as "the Fool's zanies," and created two new characters--a singing zany and a dancing zany--to accompany Feste the Fool. He also did some textual pruning and excised completely the taunting of Malvolio in prison, thereby deliberately upsetting the delicately balanced construction...
...were as sharp as her own nose and chin. The other two superlative performances were the Dancing Zany of Geoffrey Holder, who designed the choreography and also sang; and the light-footed Singing Zany of Russell Oberlin, the world's finest countertenor. In other major roles, Fritz Weaver's Malvolio, Zachary Scott's Orsino, and George Mathews' Sir Toby were disappointing...
Eric Portman makes an excellent Captain Hook, thought one might wish that he occasionally played with more bravado, since the humor in this role is so meaty and the character is reminiscent of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. (The scene on the Pirate Ship, where Hook is duped by Peter and the orphan children is particularly reminiscent of the Garden Scene where Malvolio is duped by Sir Toby and his cohorts.) Mr. Portman, nevertheless, brings his own special qualities to the role...