Word: slapstickers
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Soupy Sales is a short-haired fellow with a kumquat nose, a moron-the-merrier expression, a crushed stovepipe hat, buttoned collar and huge bow tie. His métier is sick slapstick. He gets laughs by biting off a neighbor's hangnail or hitting an old lady with a custard pie-not in the face, but up under her arm, as if the pie were a small bucket...
...tourists who rubberneck at Foucheval's statue are characteristic of another problem: they are funny in a slapstick way, just as Foucheval is often funny in a flip way. But comedy added to philosophy does not automatically produce tragicomedy: Morrow has made no synthesis of tone. It is a miracle that the audience can appreciate the mood of Moira's marvelous waltz scene. The last act is also dramatically outrageous, despite fine touches of lighting and staging...
Happily, operatic tradition and the difficulties of musical presentation excuse such a trite plot. At the same time they also obscured several of Mr. Smith's funny lines. Obfuscation failed to overcome the genuine slapstick in the organ scene of the first...
Except for the lead, the Poets' actors did well by Houghton. Lucy Stone is a magnificent comedienne. While she's no Giulietta Masina, she was the only member of the cast (this may reflect on director Maurice Breslow) who fully appreciated the slapstick possibilities of the play. Jerry Vermilye's competence as Peter was unfailing, and Raye Bush as Mrs. Mallow, the old lady who repays Peter's charity, handled a fairly banal character interestingly. But William Hillier's portrayal of Bill detracted greatly from the whole production. It would be impossible to say he didn't develop his part...
Silents Please (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Episodes from the slapstick films of Mack Sennett...