Word: alison
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Most of Jimmy's unpleasantness is directed into torturing his well-bred wife Alison (Silje Nnand). Alison's beauty, grace and propriety are frustratingly unattainable to her husband, and she exacerbates the situation by ignoring his rantings. Normand masters a frenetic nervous tension that shows itself in everything she does, from a palsied hand to a tremulous voice. She portrays Alison's silent suffering exquisitely. As she stands at an ironing board in the opening scene, we are captivated by her penetrating eyes and intense concentration on her work. In her frightened, innocent loveliness, Normand's Alison truly...
Jimmy's counterpart Cliff is a stoic, but Marmor takes this impertubability too far. Cliff may be a "noman's land" between Jimmy and Alison, but he is also clever, and Marmor sometimes allows humorous lines to go by without giving them the wit they deserve...
Catherine Robe expertly plays Helena, a friend of Alison's who comes to stay and breaks up the group's dynamic, eventually seducing Jimmy. Robe emphasizes the subtle acidity of her lines, painting Helena as a cold, blunt, curt, savvy and slightly conniving woman. But Robe is also attentive to Helena's sense of moral obligation, rendering Helena's complexities exciting to watch...
...minor inconsistency that can be distracting to the audience is the use of English accents. For the first part of the play, McPartland and Marmor do not speak like Brits while Normand does. This is tolerable. Normand's accent suggests Alison's privileged upbringing, and the fact that Robe (as someone from a similar background) also speaks with a slight accent supports this. But the two women are unable to sustain their accents throughout, and the arrival of Alison's American-sounding father (Will Slaughter) on the scene confuses things...
...closing, we would like to reiterate that the mission of the Harvard-Radcliffe Black Students Association is to present intellectual discourse that will serve not only to uplift, empower and enlighten the Black community, but the greater Harvard community as well. Alison L. Moore...