Word: tynan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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According to Kenneth Tynan, the English dramatic critic who spent last weekend as a visiting lion at Winthrop House, a critic's specific opinions are less important than the attitudes that underlie them. In Tynan's case, private conversation reinforces the impression given by his articles in the New Yorker, where he is guest critic, that his basic attitude toward the theatre is a deeply serious one. In a profession populated largely by somnambulistic hacks, his Shavian emphasis on the relation of drama to life is rare and valuable. But his seriousness never declines into solemnity; his awareness...
...Tynan began writing criticism twelve years after his birth in 1927. As a scholarship student at Oxford he criticized and directed plays, edited a literary magazine, and served as secretary of the Oxford Union, "a sort of large-scale debating society." He had gone up to Oxford at the age of eighteen, at the close of World War II, a period when the University was largely dominated by returning veterans, many of them years older than he. "One had to in a sense work harder, because of the generation gap... And that I think was invaluable. One couldn't just...
...twenty-seven, Tynan became dramatic critic for The Observer of London, in which capacity he speedily made an impressive international reputation, and last fall he came to America (which he had visited every year since 1952) to write for the New Yorker. And so to Master Owen's living room at Winthrop House, where he appeared last Sunday in a maroon suit and loose knotted tie: a tall young man in his early thirties, with a battery of firmly held, well-expounded, and well-supported opinions...
...informed Englishman, Tynan can see the American stage more steadily and wholly than nearly any American. "Due to the nature of Broadway--the blockbuster mystique, you know, it's got to be big and bangy," he detects "a tendency to look for the Great American Play all the time ... I think there's a danger that the more temperate drama might be washed out of sight in favor of a play like Niagara, that indunates you... I think the chief danger is the acceptance of excitement for excitement's sake...
British critic and playwright Kenneth Tynan will arrive at Harvard tomorrow for a three day visit at Winthop House. During his stay, he will meet informally with Winthrop undergraduates and Faculty members interested in drama. Tynan is currently drama critic for the New Yorker, while on a year's leave from his regular reviewing duties for the London Observer...