Word: papp
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...fractiously seriocomic play occupying the stage of Joseph Papp's Public Theater in Manhattan is not the real thing, but Roberta Maxwell very much...
After Joseph Papp relinquished his caretakership in 1977, the theater was dark for three years. Relit this season under the overall command of Richmond Crinkley the Vivian Beaumont is gambling on name-brand appeal involving such diverse talents as Woody Allen, Edward Albee and Ellis Rabb. One of the group, Sarah Caldwell. best known for staging operas, makes her Broadway directorial debut with Macbeth. While this production may not kindle a blaze of excitement it is engaging enough to pose no threat of killing off the Beaumont...
...production was first put on at Papp's lovely outdoor theater in Central Park last July. To get the freshness he wanted, Leach hired two pop idols for the leads, Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith. "We weren't out to do a rock version of Gilbert and Sullivan," he explains. "I wanted pop singers to make us rehear the lines." In fact, that seemingly odd casting was a master stroke, and both performers may be duly anointed as perfect in their parts. Ronstadt, 34, looks as innocent as a fawn and is able to hit high notes that...
...play has always been done in such a rigid, lifeless way that people don't realize how funny and vigorous the material is on the page," says Director Wilford Leach, one of the prime movers of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. "We wanted to do the play rather than people's idea of it. We decided to scrape off the encrustations of tradition but remain faithful to the script...
...classic can produce ironic historic resonances, as in Jean Giraudoux's sophisticated reshaping of the Greek myths. At other times, sloppy, inane, incongruous desecration masquerades as creative reincarnation, and the people involved spout rubbish about "making the work speak to our own time." In the present instance, Joseph Papp, who took over as director from Andrei Serban and at whose off-Broadway Public Theater Alice in Concert is being presented, reveals no guiding wisdom or purpose...