Word: scenes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...best be understood as an internal event, perhaps a stroke. Nurses may object to the image of one of their number (Jeffrey Bihr) ignoring a patient while reading what seems to be a novel that tells the story of Lear and cackling at the gruesome bits. But the scene evokes the actual emotional distance between dying patients and the medical professionals attending them. If Lear (Tom Hewitt) is tumbled into a laundry cart, many another patient has felt similarly objectified...
...Puccini's Turandot; the images are the last frenetic dreams of a dying woman. Ancient astral priests dress her for a mysterious ritual: paint on her body, diamonds on the soles of her feet, finally a branding iron pressed to her lips. A rude flash, and we see the scene of a car accident. The jewels are mortal wounds, the priests surgeons, the vision one of hope and fear for the unknown world that follows death. Visually, Russell's sequence is pitched at see above high- see. Emotionally, it takes preposterous risks and pulls them...
There are cinematic scene shifts, striking tableaux and, too late to help, affecting moments for Macduff and the wife and son whom he unknowingly abandons to their murder. At the end, Macbeth and Macduff duel in silhouette, then tumble behind a row of soldiers, so there is momentary doubt about who felled whom. But surely almost everyone knows the plot: such pseudo surprise is no substitute for the deeper astonishment of fresh insight into two of the great archetypes in world drama...
...Cloud 9 can be said to have a plot--a mighty big "If"--it exists only to carry the play from the jokey sex scene or pick-up scene to the next. Every character is to some degree obsessed with sex. The problem is that the characters are at the same time confused about their sexual identities. Some are secretly homosexual or bisexual, some are secretly adulterous, some secretly share one or more of these traits and some display them openly. To further confuse things, some of the actors and actresses cross-dress to play people of the opposite...
...attempt at the role of C.J. Memphis, a character who seems to be an Uncle Tom. Everyone in the company likes Memphis except Waters. Jones gives a comic performance as Memphis, who is from the deep South, for the totally naive and acquiescent creature that he is. Jones' last scene, in the MP jailhouse, when the crazed Memphis feels he is at the end of his rope, is particularly moving. A large part of the role involves singing and although Jones has a nice voice it lacks the bluesy quality that the songs require...