Word: rabbe
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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...
After 40 years, the play still provides a delightful evening because Barry could hone a comic line like a Sheffield blade. Director Ellis Rabb does full justice to that, but he scants the social subtext of what is, in some ways, a defense of snobbery. Without carrying Brechtian placards, the play says in a variety of ways: "Marry your own kind," "Wealth sanctifies," "Avoid lesser breeds (like maids and intrusive upstart journalists) who violate the elitist code of being 'yare.' " That is the saline substance beneath the sleek surface of The Philadelphia Story, and it is only fitfully...
...from Utah walks into "any 42nd Street Theatre" and announces she wants to star in a Broadway show, Ellen Zachos' wide-eyed insouciance insures Ruby will make it big in show business. But first the nasty leading lady of the show about to open that night, Mona Kent (Susannah Rabb), must be eliminated, done neatly when the public-works projects of the W.P.A. force the play-within-the-play to open on a battleship, where Miss Kent succumbs to sea-sickness. And of course Ruby has to fall in love along the way; one of those shore-leave sailors...
MONA KENT deserves her happy ending; Susannah Rabb maker even selfish bitchiness appealing. Rabb isn't as good a singer as Zachos or Reed, but David Edelman and Penny Outlaw, the musical directors, have cleverly arranged her songs so she can talk her way through the hardest parts. After all, it's in the script that the ingenue should sing better than the fading star who got where she is on her sex appeal. Rabb brings a glorious cattiness to her role--drawling "I'm sure" when poor Ruby stammers out her name--and dances with the proper verve...
...Only Rabb falters a trifle in making Whiteside more of an imp than a monster. Monty Woolley, who originated the role, was white-bearded and corpulent, a sort of malignant Santa Claus. Rabb reveals a trifle too much of the jolly rather than the Old Nick. - By T.E. Kalem