Word: minick
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...Minick. The story is simple enough. A septuagenarian comes to live with his son and his son's wife. Into the painfully middle-class household he brings a curious chaos of little things. He does not fit and he gets in the way. Finally he completely shatters a ladies' civic club meeting. Meanwhile he has come to know the denizens of an old men's home nearby. In the last act, he comes to realize that generations may mix but cannot blend. He goes to live among his cronies at the home...
Edna Ferber originally wrote this chonicle as a short story-Old Man Minick. George S. Kaufman (coauthor of Dulcy, Merton, Beggar on Horseback, etc.) helped her turn it into a play. Between them they very nearly did a masterpiece. The play is amusing, deeply touching in spots, but overshoots the mark by a too tenacious realism. The characters are types rather than individuals. The detail becomes too authentic...
Critics disagreed over the performance of O. P. Heggie as Minick. Some said he caught completely the blithe spirit of the old man who upset the household by staying too long in the bathroom mornings. Others averred that he "photographed" the character instead of painting it with the sure stroke of a creator. Phyllis Povah, on the other hand, was credited with the most distinguished work of her not undistinguished career. The rest of the cast, the atmosphere and the direction were judged satisfactory...