Word: gitter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there. The Loeb reading of The Jew of Malta is to Marlowe's play as as the film Dr. Strangelove is to the book from which it came, Red Alert. Quite correctly wary of a straight interpretation of the script, and obviously goaded on by a receptive audience, Dean Gitter, director Paul Schmidt, and an excellent cast, turn the tragi-comedy into a masterful and highly enjoyable farce...
...first sign of what modern minds have wrought comes in the opening moments. In a short prologue, Machiavelli (played by Schmidt) introduces Gitter as Barabas, the wily Jew. An appearance by the "odious" Italian was usually enough to terrify Elizabethans for the evening. But let Schmidt merely change one word in the script, let him say "I come not to read a lecture here in Cambridge," and Presto! The audence laughs and the fun begins...
...caught in his own plot and sinks to a painful death in a "deep pit past recovery." His wile has betrayed him, and his snarling vengeance ("Damn'd Christians, dogs, and Turkish Infidels,") echoes across the stage. Having avoided the serious side of Barabas' treachery until the end, however, Gitter's curse suffers from its incongruity. The audience, which previously jumped at every funny line in the play, seems perplexed by the Jew's sudden viciousness...
...smaller roles have almost all been shortened considerably; few characters have time to make any impression on the stage. Instead they seem to melt into choruses behind Tamburlaine, enemies foretelling his downfall, counsellors feeding his ego. Once in a while a reader stands out from the faceless crowd--Dean Gitter as Cosroe and Phillip Hecksher as Techelles bring some life to their parts. A few of the 42 parts are also noticeably bad; Richard Backus races through the brief prologue at breakneck speed and Jeremiah Tower seems to feel that Mycetes must be made monotonous in order to show that...
...Frances Gitter as Zenocrate starts slowly, making no effort to smooth the queen's sudden transformation from hatred of Tamburlaine to love for him. This particular roughness is largely Marlowe's fault; as the play moves along, Miss Gitter's acting gets smoother. In her death scene, the production reaches its climax. Stone's outbursts of emotion and Miss Gitter's lovely reading are supplemented by some dazzling work with the lighting by David Levine...