Word: mr
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Mr. Seltzer has directed in addition to his other chores, and has not made a good job of it. Although he uses a bare stage, his production is spotted with stage-waits. These will certainly speed up as the run goes on, but even short blackouts make the play a pile of disparate scenes, instead of an unbroken continuity of swiftly-changing action. Mr. Seltzer's blocking has some odd lapses, and falls apart entirely at the end. These final scenes also expose most pitilessly the limitations of his actors, and the concluding Battle of Shrewsbury is the soggiest...
...snore of authority, rich with phlegm and idiosyncrasy, and within a few minutes after it dwindles into wakefulness there is no question that things will be all right. The lump of course is Sir John Falstaff, in the considerably-augmented person of Daniel Seltzer, and the effervescent Mr. Seltzer is engaged in one of the most amazing tours de force ever perpetrated upon the risibilities of the Harvard community. He shows us an entirely fabulous creature, soaring in the Empyrean of obesity and insolence; he totters and grumbles with a rambunctious aplomb that never descends into querulousness...
...which he pretends to pretend to insult Falstaff, while actually meaning every word, is completely soft-pedaled, and the play's most multi-edged ironies go with it. Affairs are considerably heartier on that account, but there is nothing self-compensating in the insipidity and lack of eloquence in Mr. Wailes' later scenes...
...Henry IV has its inalienable glories, which frequently light up the Adams House production even when the Fat Knight is offstage. But while these have been and will be available elsewhere, there is no telling whether Mr. Seltzer will ever play Falstaff again after next Tuesday. Miss him at your own risk...
...Mr. Aaron's sure hand, however, that provides the necessary finesse. He handles the group scenes especially effectively; indeed, the best moment of the evening comes in scene four, when the priest is saying a makeshift Mass in the hut of the woman whose daughter he fathered. As the townspeople, genuflecting on the dirt floor, devoutly listen to the Latin words, Stephen Randall '60 (who does an excellent job in several bit parts) bursts into the hut with a warning that the police are three minutes away. The shock of this pronouncement frightens even the audience...