Critics Are Royal Pain for Nureyev, ‘The King and I’

Rudolf Nureyev in “The King and I”? It doesn’t sound impossible. But the new touring production (scheduled for Southern California in December) didn’t fare too well last week at the Wang Center in Boston.

Kevin Kelley of the Boston Globe said that although Nureyev had been the premiere dancer of his time, no one who had seen his movies--or this production--”would sensibly claim the man can act.”

Kelley found Nureyev’s King an emotional blank next to Yul Brynner’s--”There’s not a hint of the little boy hiding behind the King’s arrogance.” Worse than that, Nureyev was “so lame-spoken as to be largely incomprehensible.” In short, a star-turn by a star over his head.

Arthur Friedman of the Boston Herald put it more tactfully. Nureyev, he said, “wasn’t entirely comfortable in the role. His speaking voice lacks color and variety, some of his timing is off and his temperament is surprisingly mild: a sort of intense grouchiness that’s decidedly unroyal and uninteresting.”

A radio reviewer, Joyce Kulhawik of WBZ, was quite blunt. “Disastrous,” she said.

Nureyev’s “King and I” will play the Orange County Performing Arts Center Dec. 5-10 and the Pantages Dec. 25-Jan. 7. Broadway doesn’t seem to be on the schedule.

Another famous guest star--the rocker, Sting--took it on the chin in Washington. He is playing Mack the Knife in a revival of “Threepenny Opera” that is going to Broadway on Nov. 5.

But the Washington critics weren’t impressed with his opening-night performance at the National Theatre, where the show is warming up.

The Post’s David Richards thought that Sting looked sufficiently lean and mean, but his acting “has little resonance and his singing voice is surprisingly thin.”

The Times’ Hap Ernstein said that those who were thinking about seeing Sting, had better “prepare to be stung.”

President and Mrs. Bush enjoyed the performance, however, and so did Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin. He told the Associated Press that “Threepenny Opera” is often performed in the Soviet Union. “It’s the truth about life,” he said.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Actress Pat Carroll (in Jordan Young’s new book, “Acting Solo”)--”If we can’t transmit deep concern, deep joy, elation, deep hatred, what the hell are we doing? And I’ve been in all the junk in the world, so I know.”