Word: scenes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...brio, but his John Tanner never seems committed to his ideas with any great intensity of the "moral passion" he talks about. It becomes a matter of little significance that the revolutionary activities of this Tanner should be circumscribed by marriage. (His air of frivolity vanishes during the hell scene, but here his attempt at the aristocratic chill becoming to Don Juan degenerates sometimes into mere posturing...
...with a wonderfully cool, crafty grace. In his stage directions Shaw calls Ann "one of the vital geniuses," and Tanner says, referring to her, "Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of creation." Miss Harris' Ann completely fails to live up to these prescriptions, even during the hell scene when her tempting activities are temporarily in abeyance; but perhaps there is nothing in the lines given her that can be so acted. At any rate, she makes it completely credible that, though Tanner regards marriage as "apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale...
...fourth participant in the hell scene, an apostate from heaven who has left the "icy mansions of the sky" to embrace hellish hedonism, is Don Juan's Mozartean enemy the Statue, here transformed into a good-natured, brainless chap who "always did what it was customary for a gentleman to do." He and his modern avatar are played for less than they are worth by William Swetland, who employs the gimmicks actors use for self-important middle age with competence but no distinction...
These worthies are under the direction of Mr. Kilty, who has deployed them with considerable skill on a graceless set by William D. Roberts. The hell scene in the Kilty production drags a bit, as it never does in the considerably-longer recorded version; probably it simply needs greater virtuosity than this cast could bring to it. Mr. Kilty does not take the play as seriously as he might, and the result is a rather superficial performance. But it is done with flamboyance and zest, and if the result is far from definitive, it is still delightful...
Within minutes police and engines from two firehouses arrived on the scene, and a large crowd gathered. Police, fearing further damage, cleared the area when electric sparks shot out of the hole. The fire itself quickly yielded to carbon dioxide fire extinguishers. Officials said the blast resulted from a short circuit which ignited gases in the manhole. Electric power was off for a two-hour period...