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Show 'Life With Father' A Most Indestructible Play The charm and vitality of the Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse play, "Life With Father," is lasting and almost indestructible. This was proved Thursday night at the Pioneer Memorial Theatre although the present production of "Life With Father" falls considerably consider-ably short, the play's delightful delight-ful humor still shines through. KNOWN BY nearly every theater-goer, the play stands as a classic in American drama. A story of a Victorian family in the 1880's, the play tells of the universal inability of men in understanding feminine non-sequitur non-sequitur logic. It 'shows that quality of wise women that makes men think they rule the roost, when it's really the successful suc-cessful wife behind the successful success-ful husband who gets the final say. At home, Vinnie changes Father from a calculating financier fi-nancier to a concerned parent, a loving husband, and baptized Christian. This production is lacking in several things. One of the main criticisms must be that the director di-rector has failed to make his actors into believable characters. charac-ters. With one or two exceptions, excep-tions, we see no motivation for the characters' actions. The performances are characterizationstwo characteriza-tionstwo dimentional representations repre-sentations of three-dimentional characters. Dr. Joseph F. Catmull is enjoyable en-joyable as Father. His timing is excellent for the comic situations situa-tions and the exple'tory speech of the character. We feel, however, how-ever, that he has been poorly directed. All of his speeches are too projected and oratorical. oratori-cal. He presents Father as all bluster and no depth, when in reality, this bluster is a cover-up cover-up for his kindness and generosity. gen-erosity. LYNNE JOHNSON is unfortunately un-fortunately miscast as Vinnie. Not only does she have a dif-. ficult time playing opposite so powerful a voice as Dr. Cat-mull's, Cat-mull's, but her having to play a 40-year old woman is almost ludicrous. Here again, there was no vocal variety, and consequently conse-quently no variety in the character char-acter of Vinnie. David Dean as the son, Clarence, Clar-ence, has great difficulty with his body on stage. His movement move-ment is not fluid, but rather jerky and automatic. Although his timing was good, his actions ac-tions belied what he was saying. say-ing. ELIZABETH SCHELLING, as Mary Skinner, was a bright spot in this production. She brought a charm and coyness that-was quite fresh and pleasing pleas-ing on stage. This production continues through Saturday and should be seen for the play's charm and the great humor of its lines. |