Word: plotting
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...masterpiece. It could, without doubt, be shorter. But 300 years after it was written and long after alchemy† went out of fashion, the play still teems with hard, bawdy, farcical fun; still gives that well-mated couple, greed and gullibility, a handsome thrashing; still rushes ahead with a plot that the great Samuel Taylor Coleridge adjudged "one of the three most perfect" in literature...
...lost too much of its charm, and in such a tune as Look for the Silver Lining has not lost any. The dances, as arranged by Richard Barstow, at times have a gaiety that is both real and reminiscent. And there is something almost touching about the unabashed Cinderella plot-the little dishwasher who winds up as a hit in the Follies...
...while the plot does manage to work its way not over obtrusively into this pictorialization of post-war life. The acting by Paul Lukas, Merle Oberon, Robert Ryan, and others is adequate and at times even rises above this epithet, but the picture itself surpasses any individual performances...
...most artistically successful of the great team's achievements, but it has lyrics that remain a pleasure to hear, even if for the hundredth time; it has very pointed gibes at the British Navy and British class structure that are still packed with wit and meaning. The plot may not amount to very much--but who cares, anyway...
Darrell Fancourt was a properly grotesque, and villainous Dick Deadeye, but that was to be expected. Most surprising was the performance of Thomas Round as Ralph Rackstraw. In less able hands, this role can become just another callow juvenile, latched onto the plot to take care of the male side of the love interest, and for little other purpose. But Round didn't devote himself to a simple display of his fine voice--he added a mature and well-constructed characterization that made his part more than just that of First Tenor...