Word: roguish
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Instead of shrinking from the play's preposterous involvements and broadly comic scenes. Director Guthrie and his cast seize them, hug them, and waltz them right into the present. The transformation is aided by brilliant modern costumes, both Voguish and roguish, designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch; Shakespeare in tails seems no more anachronistic than Shaw in a toga, and at times quite as cynical. The play's "Florentine Widow" becomes a wonderful old madam catering to the occupation forces; Helena's choosing a husband is turned into a charming kind of debutante cotillion; and the scene in which...
...Irish joke has been around for a long time, and The Quiet Man clings safely to its durable components: temper, thirst, and whimsey. But two hours and ten minutes of wry smiles and roguish glances, even from masters Ward Bond and Barry Fitzgerald, are pretty wearing...
Once you're in the pie-in-the-face mood, Si Bunce's hickory-smoked, sugar-cured characterization of the woodcutter forced to be a doctor is wonderful. The roguish woodcutter makes the most of his mistaken profession, giving Bunce the chance to leer lasciviously and pinch patients. (The actresses, incidentally, are Radcliffe, not padded males.) Some of the performances in the supporting cast are rather wooden when they are played straight, but luckily none of the performers is above stepping out of character at a propitious moment. James O'Neil's alert directing shows up well in groups scenes...
...Oyly Carte productions are still impeccably starched and smooth. The D'Oyly Carters are roguish, but they are expertly roguish. There were rumbles once over Martyn Green's unbridled, wall-climbing Ko-Ko; today, roars of sanctified laughter greet his agile footwork and fanwork...
...were in for a hard summer. With lessons learned, friends lopped off, girdle smoothed down, and a misleading air of roguish innocence, Miss Carlyle's eager lovelies were already ranging the world-perhaps in the next deck chair...