A Thurber Carnival

People ought to dedicate public buildings to James Thurber and sing to his memory on holidays. At least they should read his books and, those who can, go to see Dunster House's excellent production of A Thurber Carnival.

Thurber assembled the piece several years before his death. In a humble, un-self conscious and altogether pleasant way, it is an experiment in total media. Dramatic readings, with more acting and less reading, depending on the piece, are accompanied by a quiet jazz piano; his cartoons and illustrations are projected above the set, sometimes as asides to the stage work and sometimes as the center of attention.

Not everything works at once: not everything Thurber did, not everything director Robert V. Edgar does. "The Night the Bed Fell," for example, is a wonderful short story, a classic, but too much a narration to succeed on stage. "Gentlemen Shoppers," a happy drunken burlesque of modern fashion salons, should play well, but some sloppy acting by John R. Munger, Christopher Hart and Tom Popovich make it a bit tedious.

"File and Forget," an extended account of the donderheads in the book-publishing business, could do with some more rehearsal. So could the short opening and closing numbers, the "Word Dances," in which couples whirl about the stage, freezing in various attitudes as one character or another delivers a cartoon caption. Every unscheduled shuffle or concession to momentum is instantly apparent and instantly annoying.

When there is a coincidence of talent (which happens now about half the time and will no doubt happen more often when a large audience incites the cast to comedy) Carnival is riotous, though riotous gives you no sense of the tender and gentle emotions which overcome an audience shaking with laughter at Thurber's humor.

He had an awesome power to capsize the dingies and rowboats where we have stored the dearest values of our civilization, and if he sends them down with a chuckle, they are none the less sunk. Thus "The Last Flower" is superbly comic, and a model for the integration of verbal and visual art - but the theme is that humankind is doomed to periodic and violent disruption succeed by regeneration.

So long as the action is confined to one part of the stage, the acting goes nicely. Reynolds Smith is excellent as the wolf in "The Little Girl and the Wolf," and as the doctor in "The Pet Department." Judith Anderson is a most talented bourgeoise the part she plays in three sketches. A fine actress she, the best in the show. Peter W. Schandorff serves well as an Englishman and a Viennese.

The complaints I do have about the acting apply to the more complicated sketches, the ones played on a crowded and busy stage. No doubt a few of the awkward moments are the result of moving from story to play in the first place, but some are just as surely the product of the director's untidiness. Only in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" does Edgar manage to keep control over a number of actors moving at a frenetic pace.

Doug Levinson composed the incidental jazz and plays it on the piano. His work is professional, if somewhat pedestrian, and interesting enough to hold you listening between lines.

Daniel Michaelson has done a masterful job with the set. His problem was to construct a backdrop that would allow quick exits from many positions on two levels, and could serve for living room or basement or operating room. He managed it with a series of swiveling slats that should be seen by anyone who plans to design a House production. Alan P. Symonds has done a careful job with the lighting, which is also a good deal more sophisticated than one expects at a House play.