Word: sparer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Young Alan Howard is appealing as Falstaff's page, especially when he vainly tries to conceal his master behind his tiny slip of a body. Paul Sparer brings a comically expressive face and drawn-out speech ("Jee-ee-su [long pause], dead!") to the senile Justice Shallow, but Patrick Hines overdoes his trembling and doddering companion Justice Silence...
...from being a barbarous monster, Holofernes (Paul Sparer) is Shaw's Caesar, an aphoristic philosopher-king who erotically brainwashes the girl. She swoon-dives into his bed, only to knife him to death at dawn (Giraudoux's style forbids a gory beheading). Judith's romantic rationale for the killing is that love was bound to be blunted by repetition or betrayed by neglect...
...schoolboy romantics and when-empire-was-in-flower nostalgia. No amount of skilled acting can wholly conceal that General Allenby (John Williams) is a stock pukka sahib, that the commander at Deraa (Geoffrey Keen) is a stock sweaty Turkish dog of a villain, and that Auda Abu Tayi (Paul Sparer) is a stock native chief, corrupt but endearing...
...Paul Sparer is a stuffed-shirt Ulysses who delivers his two lengthy disquisitions on degree and on time with imposing sonority. During the first, the satirical touch comes when Patrick Hines' gruff Agamemnon clearly doesn't suffer garrulity gladly and impatiently drums his fingers on the table...
...beautifully into his scared, vacillating character. Sylvia Gassel as Mistress Quickly has a lovely, silvery scene of mourning over the death of Falstaff. Felicia Montealegre is delightful in both French and English as the Princess Katharine, who is wooed in the last act by the half-bashful Henry. Paul Sparer as the Welsh captain Fluellen is admirable as both a pedant and a patriot. Indeed, Fluellen's comic scenes are much more successful than those of the thieving Pistol, played by Ian Keith. Pistol's humor is obvious and heavy at best, and Keith seems to bear down a little...