Word: play
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Hostage (by Brendan Behan) seems much less a play than a dramatization of its playwright: sprawling, shocking, howlingly off-key, marvelously in tune, humane and hilarious. What story there is turns on a young English soldier held as a hostage in a Dublin brothel against the Belfast hanging of an Irish patriot. Under Joan Littlewood's brilliant direction, this proves story enough to provide a real center of feeling among all the vaudeville tricks, freak-show tactics, music-hall gags and ditties that stuff out the evening. As the whores and queers and strangies cavort, as irreverent lyrics make...
Brisk & Martial. The Leningrad's greatest strength is its string section, which plays with a precision and dynamic range beyond the ability of most Western orchestras. The brasses are bright-almost too much so. Reported Critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor: "They are encouraged to play like cavalry on the line." But the Leningrad's most distinctive feature is the way in which it separates the various sections of the orchestra: instead of aiming for a thickly blended sound. Conductor Mravinsky emphasizes differences in coloration. The tempos, even in romantic composers, are brisk, martial-and not to every taste. Said...
...square-foot bed has a control panel hooked up with three television sets (plus a portable for emergencies), an air purifier to combat his asthma, a tape recorder, and gadgets that close curtains and regulate the air conditioning. Two secretaries arrive for breakfast, and while Red eats they play a newspaper "Brain Game" with him, firing general information questions at him. If the phone rings, he shudders. He has such a phobia for telephones that he will talk to no one but his wife and manager...
...Khrushchev. James Reston, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, felt that the answer was for the press to cover the story, but not to let Khrushchev exploit its enterprise, or offer him special forums. Wrote Reston: "The press and wireless agencies cannot in a free society play heroes and villains with the news. The press, radio and television companies are obliged to cover the news-and whatever Khrushchev does is undeniably news-but they are not obliged to create news...
...stage, even though many of its scenes were well written by Playwright John (Look Back in Anger) Osborne, The Entertainer was one of those plays in which the parts are greater than the whole; and the film, which was also written by Osborne and directed by Tony Richardson, is bedeviled by the same faults. Like Archie's life, it is too much of a mess, especially toward the end. Moreover, the attempt at social criticism is strained. Osborne's angry vision of England-as a peeling music hall in which no-talent bums hold the center...