Word: patters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Close, but no cigar. For the lack of resolution of the crisis, the seemingly unhappy endings to the love lives of the minor characters are unsatisfactory theater. The play itself is too long, too complicated, and far from inspired in many spots. Even the patter song is less than amusing. In short, the whole show could use a good play doctor to tighten up both acts. The Gilbert and Sullivan style is recognizable to the point of obviousness: usually, however, Gilbert's quick with and Sullivan's facile orchestration make their operettas work. Yeomen of the Guard, like Howard Hughes...
...corner of a lip that he tries to keep permanently curled. He plays at talking tough ("A gun, a grand and a girl-that's the kind of world I move in") and cracking wise. Neville Smith adeptly furnishes Eddie with a line of second-rate patter that tries to be breezy and ends by being hollow and rather sad, much like Eddie's own nostalgic dreams of glory...
...Chris Evert was always slight and something of a hitless wonder. Her backhand was so weak that her tennis-pro father, Jim Evert, taught her to hit the shot with both hands. Though she goes far toward making up in precision what she lacks in power, her pitter-patter serves and lack of a strong volley proved her ultimate undoing at Forest Hills. In the five months since, however, she not only polished her game but grew a full inch taller and five pounds heavier. (She is now 5 ft. 5 in. and weighs 115 Ibs.) As a result, there...
...razzmatazz, Godspell just about succeeds. Set on an empty stage backed by a chain link fence (part schoolyard, part concentration camp, tres modern), God spell manages to overcome its environment--and, to some extent, its genre. The parables and paradoxes which Christ produces--like a magician running through his patter--are really just excuses for songs and jokes and snappy impersonations. And so, the father of the prodigal son is made to speak like Jimmy Cagney and when he announces the homecoming celebration somebody shouts, "Let's Conga!" After all, no one's going to listen to that old story...
...trouble was that the crickets kept coming, and they were twice the size of the common cricket found in the U.S. At night, the patter of crickets landing on roof tiles was like the sound of rain, which the town had seldom heard in recent years. Turning out the mercury vapor lamps helped little; the crickets invaded lighted houses instead. Turning out indoor lights meant a darkness in which crickets suddenly lit on eyes or mouths or necks. Worst of all was the sickening crunch of crickets underfoot and the unending chirp-chirp-chirp of their monotonous serenade...