Word: striders
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...STRIDER Galloping off-Broadway to the Great White Way comes Strider, an allegorical comedy--with music--adapted from a Tolstoy short story about a horse. Unequivocably theatrical, the cast of Strider turns a bare stage into a field, a stable, a palace, a racetrack and a Russian steppe. Without pretension, from the first beats of Russian folk music to the last piercing neigh of Strider's death, this play uncovers the inhumanity of man, the horrors of a class system and the evil of ethnic, sexual, and age discrimination--delightfully...
Like Harpo, Gerald Hiken as Strider trots out a herd of hilarious facial contortions as he narrates his own sad story. Born a piebald--spotted with two colors--Strider can outrace but not outgrace his rival, Darling the stallion, who leaps and pirouettes with Baryshnikov's physical elegance. Strider loses his love and his potency when he receives harsh punishment from his masters for raping his girlfriend/mare. Then commence several years of gentility and peace with Prince Serpuhosky and the glory of winning a fantastic race against a fierce opponent. But Strider's fortunes collapse again and he returns finally...
...question rides with this play, however. Why was it moved from off-Broadway? Money? Strider should be an intimate evening of theater: the simplicity of this production looks out of place amidst the grandeur of a Broadway theater...
...translation from Russian could be smoother. Only Hiken delivers his lines naturally; his fellows are often stuck with awful lyrics and absurd dialogue. Nevertheless, Strider refreshes as a theatrical evening and also succeeds as a discussion of equality...
...praise Gerald Hiken as Strider might be too faint a thing to do. You only believe in him if you have ever been moved to laughter, truth and tears. No one can ask more of an actor at the match point of illumination...