Word: umber
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Equipped with a kaleidoscopic face, a pliant body and Umber vocal cords, Williams simply runs through a cast of character sketches unseen since the early days of Jonathan Winters. "Earthquake!" he will yell, jumping up and down, before he rushes out to the audience to heckle himself. Within seconds, he is back onstage, giving a beautiful basso profundo rendition of Shakespeare, followed by rapid-fire impressions of a go-go boy, Long John Silver and characters from a Japanese science-fiction movie. "It's madness all around," he explains. "But the center is very calm, like the center...
When Dwight Eisenhower began to paint by the numbers, thousands of aging Americans who had harbored a secret conviction that they were latent Rembrandts set up easels and began to daub burnt umber and indigo onto keyed spaces of their canvas kits...
...their benighted circumstances, in which the truth shines like a spotlight. For the first half of the evening, the stage has been shrouded in melancholy: dim lighting, failed hope, blunted ambition. But in the intensely personal, Ziegfeld-like "Loveland" sequence, lights and color suddenly challenge the eye, an umber paintbox opened in the sun. This visual dazzle is reminiscent of Vincente Minnelli's movie musicals ?notably the focal ballet in An American in Paris. Onstage, it has never been mounted with such unfailing skill...
...only grownups who expressed doubts. And who could blame them? For openers, the Street looks as if a toy truck had overturned in Harlem. There is no Disneyesque nostalgia for the inaccessible past. The place is in the unavoidable present; the clothing of the cast is well worn, the umber colors and grit of inner-city life are vital components of the show. Some other main ingredients: a 7-ft. canary, Big Bird, who waddles around the set constantly making mistakes. He may be the only adult-sized object in the world that kids can feel superior...