Word: playing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Norman to a shaggy Old English sheepdog. Zito translates that canine quality into a portrayal of the philandering Norman that outshines everyone in a show with several excellent performances. A natural on stage, Zito imbues Norman with a childish whimsicality and impetuousness that, like the three women in the play, you can't help adoring--and, ultimately, despising...
THAT LITTLE TRYST on the turf is as far as Norman gets with Annie, or any of the women for that matter; and at the end of the play, as all three turn their backs on him, all he can do is scream in frustration, "I only wanted to make you happy...
...SUPPOSED to hold a mirror to nature, but when a play sets actors portraying actors, the theater can turn into a house of mirrors. Resonances and multiple entendres give performers a chance to show off and audiences the opportunity to smile knowingly. George Kaufman and Edna Ferber's durable comedy doesn't make too much of this complexity, not nearly as much as some other plays in the genre, like David Mamet's A Life in the Theater. The Royal Family sticks closely to the bustling, three-act comedy formula that Kaufman and his collaborators used in so many...
Nonetheless, the play does hand any troupe a difficult assignment--trying to convince an audience that they're watching the greatest stage family of an age. Self-consciousness or ostentation easily creep in. But for the most part, Timothy Garry's production boldly closes its eyes to the danger, and, like Gloucester, steps over the cliff to discover there's no precipice...
...Treasure (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $7.95), Shulevitz speaks in his own voice to tell the story of old Isaac who dreams of a treasure far away, near the royal residence. The poor man has no ambition to play the palace, but his hunger for riches leads him on, only to prove that travel is narrowing and that no one can become truly rich until he looks into his hearth and soul. The back-in-your-own-backyard conclusion is timeworn, but the book's slow cadences and sprightly tones lend it the character of a legend that can never grow...