Word: virtuoso
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Calculated Precisely. All of this may strike some playgoers as merely another Pinter puzzle, and a rather dehydrated one at that. But in fact it is a virtuoso display of how subtle, gripping and revealing a drama can be , J fashioned from such spare materials. Fixed with Pinter's almost hallucinatory concentration and clarity, every word and gesture has its measured weight and effect. The climaxes are restrained, yet so precisely calculated-as when the two women suddenly lapse into speaking with each other as if they were roommates again-that the impact can be shattering...
...most of it is successful. And all of it is charged by the virtuoso performance of Cliff Gorman, hitherto best known for his role as the swishiest homosexual in both the stage and film versions of The Boys in the Band. Gorman dominates every scene-belting out the bitter monologues, batting back the foul-mouthed wisecracks, delivering dialects, imitations, sound effects-including a tour de force impersonation of a tape recorder on fast rewind. The first-night audience gave him a well-deserved standing ovation. They may also have been applauding for Bruce, whose time has come-belatedly...
...read in time-cockroaches, a panther, a G.I. doll on skis, a Bobby Kennedy headline, a crucified Lyndon Johnson. The impulse of Fahlstrom's work seems to be a fascination with the arbitrary, gratuitous way in which events impinge on us through mass media. He is a virtuoso of information-overload. The images are presented as so much raw material; they can be shifted and combined at will by the spectator, and in playing with the cutouts, one is drawn into a mysterious game, devoid of rules, open-ended and without any final solution...
...stage directions. The coordination of movement and dialogue must be perfect; the hectic action must have a constant momentum which increasingly bombards the audience without exhausting it; and most of all, the production has got to be funny. Ionesco is a hilarious playwright, but his brand of humor requires virtuoso directing and acting to shine at all. The current Quincy House production of Rhinoceros succeeds admirably in solving these problems...
...originals on the record are-excellent songs; the fast numbers don't always work so well, but the slow ones are reminiscent of Elton John or the Band at their best contemplative moments. And like the Band, they have worked out most of the songs carefully with little virtuoso soloing to interfere with the mood. Both of the women sing and play well, though neither of them vocally can really compare to someone like Tracy Nelson...