托福英语听力.docVIP

TPO 04 – Listening Part Conversation Narrator Listen to a conversation between a student and a librarian. Librarian Can I help you? Student Yeah, I need to find a review. It’s for my English class. We have to find reviews of the play we are reading. But they have to be from when the play was first performed, so I need to know when that was and I suppose I should start with newspaper reviews and… Librarian Contemporary reviews. Student Sorry? Librarian You want contemporary reviews. What’s the name of the play? Student It’s Happy Strangers. It was written in 1962 and we are supposed to write about its influence on American theatre and show why it’s been so important. Librarian Well, that certainly explains why your professor wants you to read some of those old reviews. The critiques really tore the play to pieces when it opened. It’s so controversial. Nobody had ever seen anything like it on the stage. Student Really? Is that a big deal? Librarian Oh, sure. Of course the critiques’ reaction made some people kind of curious about it. They wanted to see what’s causing all the fuss. In fact, we were on vacation in New York. Oh, I had to be, eh, around 16 or so, and my parents took me to see it. That would’ve been about 1965. Student So that was the year premier, great, but eh, newspaper from back then weren’t online, so, how do I… Librarian Well, we have copies of all the newspapers in the basement, and all the major papers publish reference guides to their articles reviews, etc. You will find them in the reference stacks in the back. But I start with 1964, so I think the play had been running for a little while when I saw it. Student How do you like it? I mean just two characters on the stage hanging around and basically doing nothing. Librarian Well, I was impressed. The actors were famous, and besides it was my first time in a real theatre. But you are right. It was definitely different from many plays that we read in high school. Of course, in a small town the as