Word: shavianism
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...this alchemical effort are Daniel Seltzer as Caesar, and Susan Yakutis as Cleopatra. Seltzer's performance is especially impressive: not only are his readings rapid and controlled, but he succeeds in underplaying effectively a role which would tempt any actor to bravado. As the ultimate embodiment of the Shavian pragmatic, democratic, sympathetic Superman, he also manages to convey a vision of humility in majesty. Further, his discipline deserves to underline the character's moments of wit and emotion, and to set the lonely Caesar apart from the more broadly drawn figures who surround him. The greatest virtues of the performance...
...Adams House production of The Apple Cart has been billed as the performance of a Shavian prophecy, uttered in 1929 and vindicated in 1967. They must be joking. Kings certainly haven't staged a comeback, and Shaw's references to colonial revolts, Atlantic alliances, and boorish American Presidents just don't qualify him as a oracle...
...writer, Mankiewicz displays a literate, almost Shavian flair for dialogue. As a director, he has regrettably settled for interior settings-constant reminders to the audience that The Honey Pot was adapted from the stage. Like Fox himself, the film suffers fatally from indecision; wavering between comedy and suspense, it slips between them and relies too heavily on Harrison's fair-gentlemanly charm to cushion the fall. The device almost works...
...N.R.T. stooped to conquer Molière by condescension. Rarely trusting the playwright's lines to speak for themselves, the company gimmicked up the play with whoops and simpers, vaudeville pratfalls and putty noses. Invalid takes off after doctors and their gullible patients with a Shavian vengeance. But Molière's prey is not his purpose. Like all masters of high comedy, he essentially diagnoses man's incurable diseases-vanity, pretension and folly. The bell-capped revelers of the N.R.T. are blind to this underlying gravity...
Another reason is his Shavian notion that a playwright must work from personal conviction and direct experience. "Unless you live out in the world, you're writing imaginary plays, from other people's plays. I can't get worked up about that. When you write a play, you have to want to write it so bad that not writing it gets to be annoying, intolerable...