Word: falstaff
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Bernstein-Zefffirelli production of Verdi's Falstaff with Baritone Geraint Evans, Metropolitan Opera...
...basic premise from which this radically new Hedda has sprung is simply stated in the program notes by Ted van Griethuysen, who directed the play and is also the company's artistic director: "Hedda Gabler is a good person." The premise itself is highly debatable. Is Falstaff a good person? Are Ivanov and Amanda Wingfield good persons? As soon as a great playwright has performed an in-depth analysis and portrayal of a character, that character transcends the confining categories of good and evil. Such a character then becomes rich, opaque, fascinating, and strangely elusive of definition-in precisely...
Without the energy with which this play was invested it could never have survived for three hours. It has often been noted, that it is very hard to swallow Falstaff's incredible obtuseness. In part we are meant to lay it up to lust; for this he is burnt by candles in the final scene...
...Shakespeare's fault that this is some what out of tune with the rest of the play. On the page it is a simple singing: Faistaff is lying on the ground, the fairies "put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts." Terry Hands amplified it. Falstaff fled up a tree and looked down in horror at the invasion of fairies below him. A torch was set in the tree beneath him, and an ensuing, very loud explosion threw him from the tree ten feet to the ground. This gave the final scene both an additional element of farce...
...final note on interaction of character. Falstaff's mere presence is a danger and Hands's Ford was largely successful in averting it by drawing the play's energy into his transformation. Before he changes he can be quite funny; his interviews with Falstaff were particularly well done. One saw the carefully composed Mr. Brooke (Ford) presenting a nicely Falstaffian proposition; meanwhile, Falstaff relished his possibilities and promising success, while Ford inwardly rebelled and very nearly lost his composure...