Word: redfords
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Director Paul Redford has ingeniously underscored most of the show with subtle percussion music, wood blocks, wind chimes and drums that unite the play and make credible the passing of 16 years and the revelation scene in the fifth act. John Krosnick, however, is occasionally heavy-handed with his drumsticks...
...show's first three acts are brilliant, the blocking simple and elegant and the acting convincing. The first three acts are a sad tale, "best for winter." In the fourth act, the play metamorphoses into a springtime world of romance and comedy: Redford's interpretation of this act is fit only for the Ziegfeld follies. He has included kick lines, scat numbers and Three Stooges slapstick falls. These numbers are endless and the act almost succeeds in ruining an otherwise brilliant production...
...Redford has bizarrely chosen the '20s as the setting for this play, a decision chiefly noticeable in the first three acts by the costumes of the performers. In the fourth act, the time setting of the production returns with a vengeance, as peasants do flapper numbers to Louis Armstrong tapes...
Indeed, the entertainment world itself has been displaying an ever-more-conspicuous political face. Jane Fonda fights nuclear energy. Robert Redford preaches environmentalism. Paul Newman turns up as an emissary to the U.N.-where Pearl Bailey also once sat. Ideology has begun blurting forth even at Oscar shindigs, injected in 1973 by Marlon Brando for the American Indians and last year by Vanessa Redgrave against Zionism...
...actors at the Loeb become little more than menials on stage, pushing about various inanimate objects in time to the music. Only a couple of performances have much character--Paul Redford's cigar-chewing Loge and Grace Shohet's teasing Brunnhilde stand out. This is one show where the technical crew deserves more credit than the performers; Eric Cornwell's lighting, Antony Rudie's technical direction, and Jennifer Schreiber's stage-managing must all be epic efforts...