Word: vereen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...doesn't walk, he oils himself across the stage. He doesn't jump, he takes off like a small but carefully guided missile. If there should ever be another power failure on Broadway, Ben Vereen could light up the Imperial Theater with one or two snaps of his electric, ring-encrusted fingers. In Pippin, a new hit musical (TIME, Nov. 6) with many standout parts, Vereen's M.C. stands out from all the others...
...other. It is a form of double vision. The sight of the people dancing makes play-goers see the people who are dying with a disconcerting clarity. And from Cabaret comes the master of ceremonies who dominates and observes the show like a seeing-eye god. Ben Vereen moves through the role of M.C. like a meteor. His near equal is Leland Palmer, a dervish of a dancer, who plays a kind of inflectively Jewish stepmother to Pippin...
...vision that has helped turn so many of the hip young off contemporary religion. Hawaii-born Yvonne Elliman, 19, has just the right combination of sweet, gentle good looks and crooning pop ballad style to suggest that Magdalene is really two Marys rolled into one. As Judas, Ben Vereen, 24, has one of the more physically demanding roles in the history of Broadway. Not only must he sing at great length?in a style that suggests Sammy Davis Jr. imitating Chuck Berry?but, in the torment of guilt, he hops and dances around like a man in the grip...
...care and handling of gas. Run through a boxcar filled with tear gas, they learned how to apply atropine (the antidote to nerve gas) and how to fit gas masks. The job was not a lark for the 32 longshoremen, but neither were they particularly worried. Said W.Z. Vereen, who with his colleagues relishes the $17-per-hour double pay for the ticklish work: "This job isn't as dangerous as the mustard gas we had in here a few years...