Word: skolnik
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Miller hopes his dramas will yield more than that "proper purgation of pity and fear" that Aristotle called catharsis. He hopes they will bring enlightenment to his audience. Peter Skolnik's production is loaded with pity and fear. He has put together an altogether stunning show. But understanding there is none. I left the Loeb as confused as Eddie Carbone...
...Skolnik's fault as well. Miller wrote two versions of the play and perhaps Skolnik hoped to incorporate the best of each. He has had trouble deciding whether to mount a naturalistic production that might present rather than interpret, where Eddie might live out his horror in the reality of familiar surroundings; or a poetical, highly theatrical one, such as Miller first intended. His compromise--a fine, realistic set with no top but a darkened sky; and the inclusion of a windy narration--proves more distracting than illuminating. It was Miller's error to keep reminding his audience of their...
...truly enduring quality of Miller's first plays, the almost prehistoric, concentrated expression of aggression and pity, has been somewhat vitiated in his more recent attempts to write plays that are socially useful. Here, Skolnik has mounted an ambitious production that tries to present considerably more than an indictment of the squealer, and the society that pressures, then closes in upon, him. The moral "message" has been obfuscated in the process, but it was blurred before Skolnik set his sights...
...Peter Skolnik has staged a clever and well-placed version of The Fantasticks. The actors remove themselves from the story to joke with each other and with the audience; yet Skolnik has coached them to make a flawless transition from portrayers to portrayed. And he has succeeded in making dewy, sentimental lines like "my bride will dress in sunlight with rain for her wedding veil" sound plausible. He has skillfully used the mute (Lorenzo Weisman) in his various roles as a wall, a tree, a bricklaver, and nature...
...Wells, fails to be terrifying enough; he is much too amiable. In preparing the love philter, for example, he innocents in the tone in which one normally makes introductions; at the end (I must not disclose the end), he sounds as if he were going on vacation. Otherwise, Mr. Skolnik is splendid. His patter is palpitating, his dancing delightful...