Word: ana
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...solemn conclave. Before the dark backdrop of the tiny Association of Amateur Artists theater, dapper, grey-haired Brazilian Ambassador Luis Pereira Ferreira de Faro announced to a hushed audience the result of their deliberations. The diplomats, aided by local intellectuals and journalists, had selected luscious Peruvian Ana Maria Alvarez Calderon as Beauty Queen of All the Americas...
...Ana Maria is fond of lilies and orchids, which she grows, and wild about bullfighting. Having studied in the U.S. for a year at San Francisco's Sacred Heart School, she would like to travel more, hopes to take up social work as a career...
...Juan in Hell presents Shaw's view of what life is all about, through the eyes of his seemingly incongrous spokesman, Don Juan. Shaw's Hell is the fulfilment of the senses; Heaven is the fulfilment of the mind. Thus, Heaven, as Dona Ana's father discovers, is a great bore to all but the men of genius whom the Life Force urges to greater and greater heights of self-knowledge and desire to improve the lot of humanity. In Hell, however, the conventional and dutiful are quite at home. The ephemeral, which they have sought before death...
This paradox confronts the recent arrival, Dona Ana, who, as legend has it, retained her virtue at the expense of her father who was killed by Juan in a duel over the attempted seduction. Don Juan, a veteran in Hell, is seen to have profited by his earthly satiation with the life of the senses, and he is prepared to visit Heaven to achieve self-fulfilment. In analysis, it may be hard to see how this idea could ever be interesting in dramatic form. But the sparkling prose of the philosophic discussions is delightful for its wit, its audacity...
...also a challenge to the actors, who met it only middling well. Robert Fletcher, for the most part, had sufficient vitality for his part as Don Juan. The star, however, was not impressive. In her unwillingness, as Dona Ana, to accept the kind of Hell and Heaven she finds, Claire Luce succeeds only in being unpleasant. Jerry Kilty, as Dona Ana's father, fully appreciated the humor of his part, as Miss Luce did not. The ministerial quality of Donald Stevens, as the devil, made his performance interesting, but he had little variety...