Word: yarns
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Shuffling onto the bare, makeshift stage of Boston's Church of the Covenant, Al Pacino's Richard could be taken for a failed Mafia assassin seeking asylum. The left sleeve of his green knit pullover bunches around some unspeakable wound of a hand. The yarn in the shoulder stretches obscenely over his hump. His cheeks quiver with little tics. His lips pout in private arrangements of humor and rage. When he speaks, Elizabethan English seems to acquire a Sicilian accent: Shakespeare out of The Godfather...
...sister living in incest, Bob Waldinger and Susan Ehrlich taunt and comfort each other with a vehemence that flickers between sibling rivalry and lovers' passion. The play is too long, but Waldinger, cowering and speaking with a mouth askew, and Erhrlich, alternately imperious and wistful, draw up the yarn into a ball of tension...
Benton and Newman spin a yarn based on the exploits of the gangs of runaway boys who roamed the western territories in order to flee from the Civil War draft. The two heroes are Drew Dixon, an Ohio boy of sound upbringing, and Jake Rumson, a Pennsylvania wildcat, not only a runaway but a deserter. Jake, contemptuous of all authority and opinion other than his own, leads the gang Drew joins up with. And Drew, for reasons unexplained, becomes his only friend...
...some time in the 9th century. Surely, however, the legend could not have been as turgid or as invincibly dull as the film that has been fashioned from it. The film makers, making a wild scramble for contemporary relevance, have chosen to frame the story with a singularly absurd yarn about a schizoid evangelist (also portrayed by Miss Ullmann) who believes she is Pope Joan. "Classic case of withdrawal," mutters Psychiatrist Keir Dullea, peering at her through huge spectacles...
VIEWING THE OFFERINGS one at a time, there are some exceptional pieces. Russian peasants are reknowned for their wood-carving skills, and I was happy to find a few segments of intricately-sculpted decorative house trim, plus about 30 wooden distaffs (for spinning wool into yarn). Half the distaffs are covered with figures of birds, animals, and fanciful arabesques in bright tempera; the others are blond wood so delicately carved that they give the impression of lace. A great find was a group of clever toy whistles made by craftsmen in the Arkhangelsk and Tula regions from 1890 through...