Word: teas
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...driving spirit of Mao. At the door of the gray building, weatherworn and flaking, are the smiling hosts who have arranged the tour meticulously. The visitors trudge down the cold, dark halls (heat in the rooms only, electric light nowhere) and the first thing, as usual, is tea...
...Noise. The students who have been pouring tea, age 12 or 13, step back against the wall. One smiles. A few wear the red arm bands that designate them as Red Guards. Proud of his operation, Wang keeps hurrying his guests on to see more. First comes a chemistry class. Mao looks down from the wall again. The students sit like robots listening to the teacher talk about analyzing the content of calcium. They recite like soldiers, turning to their books and back again on command, as if executing close-order drill. Nobody slouches, no eyes stray from the teacher...
This production veers between these two poles. Some scenes, like the tea party at Celimene's house, are brilliantly timed and break up the house. The orgy of mutual sighing and foppish introduction at the beginning of this scene is particularly effective. But, almost every actor has his moments of dull delivery. George Patterson, playing Alceste, says his lines in the most professional manner, but particularly during his extended harangues he does not display a wide enough range of emotion to keep them from being flat and rhetorical. Sarah Hunter, as Celimene, and John Daley as Alceste's friend Philinte...
...Wells, as Betay the local madam, is none too broad herself. Barry Harman uses his role as Miss Glory Morning to lead into a couple of quite accomplished dance routines. The role itself he tends to underplay--during his bedroom scene, he sounds more like Deborah Kerr swearing off tea and sympathy than the "whore with a heart of gold" he's supposed...
Fiddler on the Roof. Topol's a fine Tevye, if that's your glass of tea. Cheri Complex...