The Smell Of The Greasepaint

[poliphilo]

I've never been much of a theatre goer. If I'm honest I find theatre disappointing. 

I wish I'd seen Olivier on stage. I really do. Maybe then I'd have understood why he's supposed to be so great. 

I saw Alec Guinness in one of Alan Bennett's plays about spies. It was awfully talky. I remember the verbal music and a wonderful twitchy, mini-nervous breakdown thing he did at the end.

I saw Antony Hopkins as Lear. Not very good. Hopkins admitted afterwards he really didn't understand what he was doing. The best thing in that production was Anna Massey's Goneril.

 Dorothy Tutin and Alec McCowen as Antony and Cleopatra. Both of them woefully miscast. That's the nearest I've come to falling asleep during a show.

Charlton Heston in the Caine Mutiny, Lauren Bacall in Sweet Bird of Youth:  just because you can fill the screen doesn't mean you can hold the stage.

Good experiences? David Warner's Hamlet- and a sexy, greenwoody As You Like It in Manchester with Janet McTeer as Rosalind.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Saw Judi Dench and Donald Sinden in Much Ado at Stratford on a skool trip once. They were tremendous. But agreed, memorable productions are rare.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I saw Sinden as Lord Foppington in whatever Restoration drama that is.

And (brag, brag) I was at school with his son Jeremy- a promising actor who died young.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

"The Relapse," by Sir John Vanbrugh.
A terrific play, ad his follow-up "The Provoked Wife" is even better.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the one. It was a pretty good production- with the brilliant Frances de la Tour as Miss Hoyden.