Word: thurberism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Thurber Carnival is a one-mind show, an animated anthology of pen-and-pencil work by the most splendidly mad of modern humorists. The thought of such a show, however alluring, must cause qualms: Can a world, neither flesh, fish nor fowl and at the same time quite palpably all three, remain vaultingly alive within theater walls, seem superbly demented in three sober dimensions? It turns out that to a notable degree, it can. For one thing, there is much of Thurber that snugly fits a kind of intimate revue. The Unicorn in the Garden and If Grant Had Been...
With nine pleasant human actors to boot, sympathetic Burgess Meredith staging, and an uncluttered stage, Thurber can shoot straight at the audience. Out of his imagination has come a glorious and instructive world in which everyone is to some extent out of his mind. The demonstration begins at once, with four dancing couples stopping to fling out such remarks as: "She said he proposed something on their wedding night her own brother wouldn't have suggested." The demonstration continues with a round of well-known Thurber fables, and with a dry-mannered Tom Ewell as a TV pet counselor...
...Thurber Carnival is a retrospective review attempting to bring to the stage some of the humorist's funniest work. Directed by Burgess Meredith, with a cast that includes Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford and Alice Ghostley, the show played St. Louis last week, midway in a six-city tryout tour. When Thurber himself missed the St. Louis opening, his wife explained that her near-blind 65-year-old husband was in his hotel room energetically polishing and rewriting lines. Wrote cautious Globe-Democrat Critic Herbert L. Monk: "A Thurber Carnival does seem to have the makings...
Popping off in Detroit during a pre-Broadway tour of A Thurber Carnival, Humorist James Thurber, 65, got to talking to local newsmen about history and women. Said he: "Women are taking over the world because they are blandly unconcerned about history. I once sat next to a woman who asked, 'Why did we have to purchase Louisiana, when we got all the other states free?' I explained to her that Louisiana was owned by two women -Louise and Anna Wilmot-and that they sold it to General Winfield Scott, provided he'd name it after them...
...only by contrast, but in their own right, it seemed to me that the other dances were rather dreary affairs. The first, and much the longest, was based on Thurber's "The Wonderful O." Read by an anonymous narrator, the story was fun to hear, but it was interrupted at intervals by dancing, much to its detriment. The danced portions were sung by a small chorus competently led by Emily Romney. Stephen Addiss' music contented itself for the most part with a two-part chanting of the text which was serviceable but monotonous, only occasionally relieved by moments of lyric...