Word: skulnik
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Writing in his accustomed idiom of the lower East Side, Odets has made Noah (played by Menasha Skulnik) a symbol of fatalistic determinism while his son, Japheth (played by Mario Alcalde), represents the viewpoint that God wants men to work out their own fate. This clash (played by a rudder for the Ark, which Japheth insists upon and which Noah calls a sinful negation of God's Will) is not a startling new theme, but is well dramatized and well acted...
Where Odets wanders is in his straining for gags and an over-reliance on Skulnik's complete mastery of inflection and gesture. Strangely, the play's main strength, a warm and jovial view of Noah's relationship with God, is too often stretched to the point of flippancy and slightly cheapens Skulnik's part, as well as the play as a whole. But this defect just puts The Flowering Peach a degree below superlative, it doesn't destroy its advanced merit. Berta Gerson, as Noah's wife, almost matches Skulnik's expertness, and Mario Alcalde should grow into...
...industry. So does the title: on Seventh Avenue there are five seasons-spring, summer, fall, winter and slack. In Miss Regan's farce, things are slack to start with and touch & go all the way. Heading the cast and gamely shouldering the burden are Yiddish Theater Comedian Menasha Skulnik and Broadway Veteran Richard Whorf. Skulnik, a mournful-looking, richly accented, frequently funny comic, handles the humor; Whorf, the drama. A married man who guiltily sins with a model, Whorf makes this part of his role as convincing in itself as it is out of key with the rest...
...shenanigans and sentiment, parades live models and dead wheezes, has touches of realism and great chunks of hokum. The Fifth Season comes, theatrically, from a very dull and noisy family: what is surprising is not that so much of it is painful, but that some of it-thanks to Skulnik...