Word: napkin
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...hysterical bedroom farce. The play's conflict is between hysteria and urbanity, the passionate idealism of youth and the orderly boredom of old age. (The General says, "Life, Gaston, is one long family lunch, tiresome because it has to be performed according to a long established ritual, with initialed napkin rings, embroidered table mats, forks of different shapes and sizes and a bell push under the table. It is a game we have agreed to play ... until the coffee. But the coffee once drunk, down the back stairs into the pantry and the best of luck...
Life in this country is only described in passing ("the tricky proliferation of America: an unfolding maze of Saturday movies, roller skating rinks, picnic grounds, church ladies, colored people...") but the beginning of the story has already indicated what effect it has had upon her parents: "They use paper napkins instead of the linen, rolled up in napkin rings; they like Pepperidge Farm bread and even Jello." The tale is, on a number of counts very sad, Miss Halley's prose is rich and evocative, and the story's exquisite construction succeeds in delaying the point until the very...
...table, Helen Keller still does not yield. She flings her spoon away. Annie slaps another into her hand-and another and another. In the end Teacher Annie Sullivan stands triumphant above her charge. She has won a signal victory: Helen has eaten with a spoon and folded her napkin...
...tips were "the only form of reward for extra efforts," Waiter Reznikov, a true member of his trade, went on to pay his respects to those whose tribute he accepts: "They don't even know how to sit at the table correctly. They think you should tie your napkin round your neck. Not all of them know that you should not prop your elbows on the table. Some come in without a tie or a jacket." In short, they lack class...
Every scene between Helen and Annie is electric in its excitement; for ten minutes in the second act, the audience sits fascinated as Annie teaches Helen to fold her napkin and to eat with a spoon; not a word is spoken. The performances of Miss Bancroft and Miss Duke so stand out that they obscure several other important assets. First, Gibson's play is astoundingly free of the oversentimentality that could so easily bog down an enterprise of this kind. Second, the rest of the cast, particularly Patricia Neal as Helen's mother and James Congdon as her half-brother...