Word: whedon
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Owen handles the rather unobtrusive part of Eliante in a gentle and completely suitable manner. But Sonia Grant, although she is funny from time to time, does not seem to make nearly as much of 'Arsinoe as she might. It is difficult to forget that she is acting. Tom Whedon is at his very best in making the effeminate fop Clitandre a most unmitigated poseur, and shows how much can be done with a relatively minor part...
Along with Clare Scott Lee Jeffries and Thomas Whedon were the stalwarts of the cast, with Andre Gregory not making the transition from legitimacy to the music hall quite so effortlessly. Miss Jeffries was the only reason for including a tired sequence about planned amusement at the beach, and Whedon met every demand of the evening good-humoredly and ably. I cared least for him in a sketch called "We See You, Fabritzius!" but then nothing or nobody could curb that...
Only Richard Smithies and Thomas Whedon seem far off in their roles. Smithies is biting, ironic and sharp in a part that calls, for an understanding, kindly and perhaps slightly silly, doctor. Whedon simply does not have the feel of his part. He turns a sensitive young poet of almost professional soulfulness, whom Chekhov both admires for his earnestness and satirizes for his foolishness, into a hard-speaking young whiner who lacks any grace or charm. There is no air of authenticity in Whedon's voice or reading: only loud and soft tones...
Miss Bisco, as an extremely winning Alice, speaks her lines more clearly than most of the cast, who occasionally bellow or slur Carroll's wit right out of the range of their three-to-ten-year-old audience. But thanks to Thomas Whedon's direction, even when dialogue and lyrics fail to overcome the steady mutter of the junior critics, the pantomime and by-play are sufficient to keep them entertained...
...dancing is entrusted to Robert Norriss who does a comic solo in the first act and replaces Whedon as Clyde for a ballet scene in the second. Norriss has obvious talents but they gain nothing from his fixed smile--an Amateur Hour expression and indeed the only amateurish thing about Norriss. The ballet, choreographer Dolly Niggemeyer's only misstep, is a trite, dull loss for which the dancers cannot be held responsible. Otherwise, the dancing is attractive and the stage is always lively, seldom cluttered...