Word: spinsterism
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...Little Indians contains the basic Christie trademarks--a cast of stereotyped characters--a retired general, a spinster, a professional man, a dashing playboy--and the usual shock ending. The plot and suspense rely on interaction between the characters--their growing suspicion of one another and the inexorable stripping of civilized facades. Beneath lie passions Christie believes can drive even the most unlikely people to murder. The success of the play thus relies on good acting to dramatize the character relationships, and fast-paced direction to highlight tension...
...cast cannot redeem. Marian Seldes winces uncomfortably in her pointless role, and Richard Woods cannot enact a plodding, fatuous lawyer without giving a plodding, fatuous performance. Victor Garber coasts fairly pleasantly through his cunning young man role, and Marian Winters twinkles merrily as a psychic spinster, but we can't be allowed to laugh at her performance without another character reminding us that she is "the comedy relief...
Though Hedda always occupies the play's center, Ibsen's profound insight and tight structure integrate the other characters as complex personalities in their own right. There is Hedda's bumbling, self-important husband George Tesman; his well-meaning spinster aunt; the gifted and unbalanced Eilert Lovborg; the parasitically devoted Thea Elvsted Hedda's rival as Lovborg's muse; and the suave dissolute Judge Brack, whose cynical attempt to blackmail Hedda precipitates her defiant suicide...
Characters like Ivy are the salvation of many authors. Ivy epitomizes the calculating bitch without becoming a caricature. None of her actions strain credibility, and this is an asset for a plot that gets as cluttered as this one does. Ivy realizes her thwarted spinster dreams through Elesina. Anticipating or rather shaping the impact Elesina has on the Stein men, Ivy patiently builds the foundation for the power she knows Elesina eventually will wield. Disregarding the sacrifices the Steins and eventually she herself make for Elesina. Ivy engineers a divorce, schedules rendezvous for adulterers, sheds the appropriate number of tears...
...episodes and traumas often veer toward the neo-Gothic, with social secretaries replacing spinster govenesses, and gay cousins occupying closets that mad old women once inhabited. Auchincloss also occasionally mires himself in melodramatic ramblings that he evidently perceives as powerful prose ("Orgasm with David was like the raising of a communion cup before an altar that knew no sacrament but love.") but these indulgent tirades are only sporadic; Auchincloss is generally a smooth and vivid writer...