Word: stratford
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...STRATFORD, Conn.--There is considerable logic in the American Shakespeare Theatre's decision this summer to fevive Artnur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials, The Crucible. This is, after all, a year in which special attention is being given to our country's history. The choice might well have fallen on Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, which dramatizes incidents in the American Revolution; but the AST gave us that play six years ago. Furthermore, would it not be better to offer a work not only about America but by an American...
...STRATFORD, Conn.--It is hardly news these days that cultural institutions such as symphony orchestras, opera and theatre companies, and art museums do not ordinarily make money. The charges levied on the general public don't come close to covering the operating budgets, and survival depends on grants, donations, or subsidies...
...variety is the spice of repertory life, the Stratford Festival in Ontario is the place to savor it. Crowning this season's six initial offerings are two intrepidly ventured rarities...
...luck of the gods fell on Stratford when Maggie Smith was cast in the role. She has an invincible gift for Restoration comedy. She can tease a spasm of laughter from an inert line, and she renders the great set speeches as if Mozart had been transmuted into prose. She makes startlingly effective use of what can only be called Brecht's "alienation effect," inhaling a line in one breath like a drag on a fresh cigarette and instantaneously tossing it away like a dead butt. This is well suited to Congreve, with his worldly ability to appraise life...
...justice to the 19-member cast, none flags in his or her efforts. As artistic director of the festival, Robin Phillips deserves unstinting credit for offering Stratford audiences the full bounty of a playwright of Congreve's stature. In The Way of the World, Congreve walks as close as he ever could in Moliere's footsteps. He casts a pitiless light on the vices of a leisure class that is trapped too high on the social scale for aspiration. Following an endless round of pleasure, these people are self-indulgent, inconstant, frustrated and foiled. In their cynical worldliness...