Word: wisteria
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Suspense (Tues. 9:30 p.m., CBS). The Wisteria Cottage...
...Wisteria Trees (by Joshua Logan; based on Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard; produced by Mr. Logan & Leland Hayward) converts Chekhov's 19th Century Russian landowners into turn-of-the-century Louisiana gentlefolk. Thereafter there are perhaps as many subtle differences between The Wisteria Trees and The Cherry Orchard as there are obvious resemblances. The difference that matters most: The Wisteria Trees is immeasurably inferior...
...class of charming, weak, self indulgent aristocrats who stubbornly refuse to face reality, and the emerging power of plebeian gogetters. Playwright Logan's most vivid achievement is atmospheric: with Negro servants and songs, with Jo Mielziner's handsome set and Lucinda Ballard's elegant costumes, The Wisteria Trees has its own strong sense of period and place. And in Louisiana as in Russia, the family will not sell off some of the land they love in order to survive, so that in the end their plantation goes under the hammer, their wisteria vines under...
...truth is that Playwright Logan has infused a touch of Yancy Loper into Chekhov, and what is heard at the end is the sound of the ax hacking the heart out of The Cherry Orchard. Yet the real trouble with The Wisteria Trees is not that it falls short of Chekhov, but that on its own terms it is so frequently blurred and limp...
Many claim for "The Cherry Orchard" first place in modern drama; "The Wisteria Trees" retains a great amount of the intimacy and despair of the original. The agony of social change is sensitively drawn and despite Logan's manhandling of the adaptation, the play remains a good...