Word: missed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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West's novella takes the form of a starkly concentrated interior monologue by the Miss Lonelyhearts figure; other characters are present mostly insofar as they impinge on the protagonist's morbid self-consciousness. In dramatizing Miss Lonelyhearts, Howard Teichmann necessarily invented much new dialogue, some of which functions to round out the motivations of the subordinate characters...
Unfortunately, much of this dialogue is insipid and cliched. Worse, Teichmann's attempts at character development partially distort West's intent. In the stage version, for example, the relationship between Miss Lonelyhearts and his sweetheart Betty--which assumes a far more central role than in the novel--is transformed into a typical 50s romance, while Shrike, Miss Lonelyhearts' misanthropic boss, becomes too intrusively a father figure. Worst of all are Teichmann's omissions. Absent from his script are many of West's most pungent passages; missing too are several key incidents which suggest that Miss Lonelyhearts' real impulse...
Happily, the Quincy House Theatricals' version of Miss Lonelyhearts is really an adaptation of an adaptation. Director Stephen Kolzak has meticulously revamped the Teichmann script, pruning away some of its most inane lines and inserting wherever possible more vivid segments from the novel. While he succeeds in eliminating glaring sexism and cliched passages like...
...glaring example is the casting of Robert Beusman in the title role. Miss Lonelyhearts is not supposed to be a particularly likable character. In the novel, he is unpleasant because of his extreme morbidity; in this production, because of his insipidity. He must emerge, however, as something more than self-parody. Unless he embraces his Christian mission with evident conviction, the painful irony of his demise is undercut, and the play belongs totally to the ever-cynical Shrike...
BEUSMAN, UNFORTUNATELY, plays Miss Lonelyhearts as a goofy adolescent type who broadcasts his weirdness by making grotesque faces. Unable to convey the fervor of Miss Lonelyhearts' hysterical religiosity, he supplements his limited emotional range with a series of stock expressions and mannerisms--employing a conscious hesitation in his voice, staring stupidly into space, shrugging his shoulders, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. Sporting a perennial grimace, Beusman is far better at looking disgusted--as in his first run-in with the man-starved Mrs. Doyle--than at appearing lovable or humane; as a result, his scenes...