Word: plays
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...thinking must have run something as follows: "This is a festive occasion, so I want a festive production. The author has obligingly given a good deal of license in the second part of his complete title--Twelfth Night; or, What You Will. The most famous words in the whole play are, oddly enough, the very first ones: 'If music be the food of love, play on.' Ha, look at the next words: 'Give me excess of it.' And Shakespeare has filled his text with references to songs. Of course we can't have singing without dancing too. I'll advertise...
...Naturally, all this extra singing and dancing will take up a lot of time. And I do want the show to be entertaining above all, so I'd better play up the farcical opportunities and invent a lot of by-play. Still, I only have two hours and a half. Well, I'll do a little pruning here and there in the text; and I guess I'll just have to omit the whole taunting of Malvolio in prison, though I realize it's the climax of the entire anti-Malvolio plotting. This does mean I'm upsetting Shakespeare...
Viola is the one honest, sincere, and normal person in the play. Yet for most of the time she must go about abnormally disguised as a young boy, who looks like her twin brother Sebastian. The problem was quite different in Elizabethan times, since actresses were interdicted and both roles were taken by young boys. Miss McKenna is able to convey a zestful boyishness without ever losing her innate womanliness. And more than any one else in the cast, she pays attention to the poetic qualities of the text (though on opening night she sometimes lowered her voice...
Tammy Grimes, as Olivia's gentlewoman-servant Maria, is perfect. She makes it clear that Maria's wits are as sharp as her nose and her chin; she is quite bright enough to have thought up one of the profoundest statements in the play: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Miss Grimes skedaddles and flits about with a lively infectiousness that is devastating...
...doesn't even live up to his own last name. Michael Wager acts a suitably foolish Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and looks ridiculous in his red and azure clothes and yellow gloves. John Karlen makes the most of the servant Fabian, the one badly written role in the play...