Word: wishengrad
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...Tender Grass (NBC, 2-2:30 p.m.). Repeat of a Passover drama by the late Morton Wishengrad, with Marian Seldes, Sam Wanamaker and Martin Brooks...
...years that Miss McKenna has been seen in this country, she has done a superlative job in two recent plays, Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden and Morton Wishengrad's The Rope Dancers. But she has also recreated an impressive number of classic roles. She has given us a warm Sister Juana and a wonderful Maggie Wylie; and an unmatchably transcendent Saint Joan, which may serve as a yardstick for all future performances by an actress. In Shakespeare, she has now offered us a memorable Hamlet (yes, the title role!), Viola, and Lady Macbeth. And I have not cited...
...valid and often effective. Moreover, the play highlights how abnormal she is by setting her against a blowzy, easygoing neighbor woman and a sane and knowledgeable neighborhood doctor. Yet, even in Siobhan McKenna's severe, unbending portrayal, Margaret seems something other than a dispassionate psychological study. Playwright Wishengrad has identified her with something in life itself, perhaps with something that gnaws at his own insides. He pushes on toward glib and rather grandiose tragedy, toward loud-pedaled moments that never quite ring true...
...this leads to a lessened response toward the characters, and to a confusion of values in the play. What exactly is east, and what is west, in Wishengrad's pessimistic geography? What is pathology, and what is sin, and what is determinism? In any case, the more he tries to expand or universalize, the more special seems his story...
...fancily tragic, The Rope Dancers is nowhere facilely sentimental; it nowhere stoops to conquer. And beyond a certain feeling for character, 43-year-old Playwright Wishengrad in his first play has his own determined way of looking at things. Once he sees only what is there, it should prove rewarding...