Ragni, Gerome - Walter Kerr

WALTER KERR

I was made seriously uncomfortable in the theater … last week … by a naive strain of what I suppose we've got to call triumphalism. That is to say, I was … asked to believe in much too easy a victory….

[A second act sequence in "Rainbow"], I am sorry to say, curdled my blood.

It came about this way. The first half of the entertainment began with the levitation of an American soldier freshly killed in Vietnam, while all about his flag-draped bier a group of non-mourners in curiously old-fashioned psychedelic robes, eye spangles, red hands and daubed foreheads sang him a welcome to their heavenly Radio Rainbeam show….

James Rado's songs … were enlivening, whatever their derivation…. Mr. Rado's lyrics weren't helping quite as much ("I got a song to sing to you / I got a song to sing to you / I got a song to sing to you / It's such a happy song") and the occasional jokes the composer had concocted with the help of brother...

[The entire page is 503 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the: