Word: pubs
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Remember when the Yankees replaced combative manager Billy Martin with easygoing Dick Howser? Well, the Father's Six bar is undergoing a similar facelift this fall, as its management hopes to parlay its new name--The Bow and Arrow Pub--and different decor into larger, more peaceful crowds for the establishment...
This music has found a wider, warmer audience of late in the U.S., a curious state of affairs when Davies' songs still seem so much like contemporary pub anthems. "We've really worked hard in the U.S.," he explains. "Played everywhere nearly. Built up a following of new fans without discarding the old." The loyalists sometimes reflect their affection in typically eccentric Kink fashion. A group of Cleveland fanatics bought a block of tickets, then, as Davies suggests, deliberately missed the show just to keep the band humble...
...pub scenes that shine especially, crackling with fast-paced hilarity and several fine performances: Daphne de Marneffe as the daffy yet sensitive Florence, Charles Mills as the meek, bewildered Brown, Randy Marshall as the meek, bewildered Brown, Randy Marshall as the less-than-Able seaman, and, best of all, David Frutkoff as the manipulative Harry. After some initial fumbling with lines, Frutkoff takes charge (as he should) and controls the comedy with exquisite timing. As Harry, he is neverill-intentioned, willing to take gullible George for a ride, but stopping when his delusion gets out of hand. Yet the irrepressible...
These transitions from the Riley home to the pub (a wonderfully dilapidated one, designed by Derek McLane), from disturbing reality to comic illusion, occur smoothly under Maddy DeLone's crisp direction. DeLone makes full use of the intimate confines of the Winthrop House JCR, organizing the human traffic with all the aplomb of a Back Bay traffic cop. A Stoppard play needs technical gadgetry: for true comic effect, Enter a Free Man should have a "Rule Britannia" clock, a few portraits of the Queen, BBC radio droning in the background, and "indoor rain." The Winthrop production manages well without them...
...PLAY SAGS during the home scenes at the beginning of the second act, however. Part of the blame must go to Stoppard, who is clearly more at home with the frothy pub banter than with the unfolding human drama. But there's not enough oppressiveness here, not enough love wrestling with the frustration. We have no sense of a 25-year relationship between husband and wife, or of what must have been deep affection between father and daughter. As a result, much of the poignancy of George Riley's plight goes by the wayside. It is an unfortunate letdown...