Word: statical
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This arrangement, while sometimes visually static, has the advantage of putting the production's emphasis on the argument, where it belongs. The argument itself, partly because of Shaw's extraordinary ability to show both points of view, is as complicated as the plot around which it revolves is simple. Undershaft, a millionaire arms manufacturer, whose religion consists of the belief that poverty is the only sin, converts his daughter Barbara, a major in the Salvation Army, to his position by simply showing her that the Army can be bought. He is also looking for a successor to his position...
Despite the difficulty it gives some of the actors, this static way of staging Major Barbara is admirable. It is admirable because Laughton was willing to accept the play for what it is, at once a sermon and exhilirating theater. The director permitted Shaw to speak, enabling the old man to vindicate himself as a comedian--because the play is often very funny--and to prove it possible to make a play out of ideas. Perhaps the highest praise this production can get is that Shaw would have approved...
...tapped for the San Francisco engagement sound unheard, after Director Adler scheduled Francesca, then learned that his star soprano (Renata Tebaldi) would be unable to take the role after all. San Francisco listeners found the old (1914) opera dull and static in spite of its lush arias, but Soprano Gencer was something to hear. Her voice is big, warm and beautiful, and capable of surging emotional power. The U.S. will be hearing more...
...when he won his first grand victory, the Battle of Blenheim (1704). By that age "Wellington had won his last and Napoleon was dead," notes Author Rowse. To the warfare of his time-a static business of formal sieges, sedate marches and textbook battles-Churchill brought a degree of speed, flexibility and dash that horrified friends and foes. After Blenheim, he fought nine more campaigns, won nine more major battles...
With the clatter of pots and pans in the political kitchen, the cries of brawling candidates in the national living room, and the static of charge and countercharge on the party line, the true voice of the U.S. political system has a hard time getting through to the people. But last week, for a moment in history, the election-year hubbub died low, the lines cleared, and from San Francisco came the clear tones of a political leader turning squarely to the future of a Republican Party once known, however justly, for its dedication to the past...