Word: zindel
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...work in question is Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and it is nothing more or less than the story of a domineering woman and her smothered loved ones. This play could probably not exist were it not for the dramatic tradition that has in the past given us The Glass Menagerie. The Little Foxes, Gyp??y, and the entire career of Edward Albee. And yet Marigolds is so sharp, so disturbing, and. yes, so slick that you can almost forget that it operates within same of the most overworked theatrical territory...
...mother might pass the potatoes. But there is wit and laughter in her nastiness: Beatrice's rantings are too full-blooded to be taken all that seriously-and, when the chips are down, she is ready to support her daughters with awkward and unsentimental gestures of love. Happily Paul Zindel has written a play that is more about dignity than anything else, and in that lies Marigolds' very real distinction...
While Paul Zindel is not on a writing par with Miller or Williams, he and his characters have a joint account, both retributive and alchemistic, and draw most of their dramatic funds from the memory bank. In his new play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Zindel seems to be overdrawn at the memory bank. His wacky humor is present, along with his abrupt pathos, a way he has of pulling the rug out from under the heart, and his frequently well-honed dialogue. But under it all, the plot, point, purpose and direction of the play seem to have...
Perceptive Ambience. Mutation is the master metaphor with which Playwright Paul Zindel links the worlds of botany and humanity. Some of the marigolds are withered, some aberrant, and some blossom handsomely. So it is in the family. It is difficult to know where praise of Marigolds should begin or end, and how to contain it. Sada Thompson may already have stolen the Obie award. Her acerb slatternly mother, gobbling cigarettes and guzzling whisky, might simply have been a mutilating monster-except that every other word and gesture reveals the maimed woman inside. The daughter roles are charged with compassion...
...ultimate accolade must go to Paul Zindel for creating a psychologically perceptive ambience. Shame hangs in the air of this house as palpably as poison gas. The home is never cleaned or tidied up, not because doing either is physically or economically impossible, but because the members of the family are psychically paralyzed. The ring of the telephone is like a scream that petrifies, and the thought of a neighbor paying a visit is as horrifying as a storm trooper battering at the door in the night. In this cave of terrified mutants, the judgments of the outside world arrive...