Word: worde
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Lincoln died last night. Mr. Kirstein, Director of the New York City Ballet and sometime poet, has written a new play about Abraham Lincoln that neither strikingly reinterprets history nor forcefully recreates it. And the deadness of the play's language and plot, the absence of mythic word and mythic act keep it a safe distance from being what its subtitle hopes, "a legend after Lincoln...
...invincible interest in the theory of sex. She dealt with both problems in masterly fashion. When he died in 1890 at 79, she arranged for him to receive the last sacrament of the Roman Church. He had been dead for two hours, but the priest took her word that he was alive. Then, "sorrowfully, reverently, and in fear and trembling," she set about burning his manuscript of The Scented Garden, an encyclopaedic sex manual whose translation from the Arabic had occupied Burton's last years (a partial version survived). Also into the flames went his private journal...
However, there are at least three outstanding jobs. Dan Deitch plays his sour, self-righteous Angelo with a sibilant "S" that makes every word he utters sound selfish and mean. Susan Channing has the part of Isabella to deal with -- one of the most ambiguous roles ever written. Yet she manages to be both touching and priggish, and she is always believable. And Paul Schmidt, though he may not show the power and the glory of the Duke, does do a creditable job with a part that goes on forever and ever...
...lack will. Yet Miss Nye repeatedly lets her strong will go slack. Or take the small but vital moment that trips up so many actresses. Macbeth is reluctant to choose the path of murder and says, "If we should fail--," to which Lady Macbeth replies, "We fail"--two tiny words. The Folio punctuation is no clear guide here. The words admit three groups of interpretation, depending on whether they are regarded as being followed by a question mark, an exclamation point, or a period. Mrs. Siddons, history's most admired Lady Macbeth, tried all three and unwisely settled...
...most startling reading in the production follows the report that Lady Macbeth is dead. In the text Macbeth proceeds: "She should have died hereafter:/There would have been a time for such a word./Tomorrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," etc. But Houseman has Colicos say, "There would have been a time for such a word tomorrow," [long pause]... and tomorrow," etc. This surprising enjambement is at the very opposite extreme from what Jason Robards did in the 1959 production here, when he exited and returned with the dead Lady Macbeth in his arms before proceeding with his speech...