Word: romanization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Comedy tonight it is. Jeff Zax gives an excellent performance as Pseudolus, obsessed with one thing: getting his freedom. He conceives a plot to get the girl for his master Hero and his life for himself, circumventing Roman tradition and the captain Miles Gloriosus (among others) in the process. Zax has about one sober moment on stage when, as Prologus, he sets the scene and asks for the blessing of Thespis. But there is a nuttiness in his eyes which leaves you with the feeling that he's not all that serious. It turns out that he wasn...
...rest of the cast is just about as proficient. Mark Szpak as Hero, Pseudolus's master who falls in love with a woman from the House of Lycus who is to be sold as a courtesan, plays the part well as a Roman Holden Caulfield, rolling and tumbling all over himself in first love. Yet there's another side to him too, cajoling Pseudolus into risking his relatively safe position--for freedom to be sure--but also for Hero. The song "Free" is a real high-point, spotlighting the two best male singers n the cast. Pseudolus has convinced himself...
...undeniably improved a lot; compared to their incredibly bad 1975 performance of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, the French composer was treated with kid gloves in the concert's opening work, his Roman Carnival Overture. Terry Maskin, who was outstanding in the 1976 Harvard Summer School Orchestra, showed similar mastery in the tricky English horn solo, and the trombones cut through the string filigree passages with round sonority. Even the upper string intonation was not excessively distressing, and the forte passages seemed to herald a new, aggressive, full-bodied ensemble sound...
...thought that I would live long enough to see this," declared Msgr. John Egan, 60, grand old man of Catholic social action. What the balding monsignor saw as he looked out upon the throng in Detroit's Cobo Hall was an unprecedented gathering of representatives of the U.S. Roman Catholic hierarchy and the church's grass roots: 110 bishops meeting openly in discussion with 1,230 priests, nuns and laity. Said Egan: "The voice of the church is about to be heard through these delegates...
...purpose: a climax to the church's two-year observance of the U.S. Bicentennial. But because delegates spent as much passion debating justice within the church as justice in society, the conference also amounted to America's first nationwide Pastoral Council. It revealed a profound gap between Roman Catholic leadership and restless activists on a series of vexing issues...