Word: bastardly
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...press." The thing he does best is stay away: he never goes to rehearsals unless he is asked to, shows confidence even if he doesn't feel it. "But after the out-of-town opening!" he says. "After those first stinking, rotten reviews! Boy, am I ever a bastard! Boy, do I make waves...
However, there can be too much directorial control and some players seem content merely to don the assorted masks that Carnovsky parcelled out. This foible seemed the particular property of the villains. Matt Conley in the most unkindest role of all, the bastard Edmund, exercised enough wit and restraint to stay this side of melodrama. But Regan (Phoebe Brand) and Goneril (Ludi Claire) ranted and raved, groaned and grimaced. Robert Benedict's Oswald was arch and despicable, Nick Smith's Cornwall took appropriate relish in kicking out Gloucester's eyes; these actors' evil was far too lunatic to be cruel...
These two are obviously men of "magnitude" in Aristotle's sense, and they produce a true tragic catharsis. The conflict is dramatic in many other ways: a Christian vs. a Pagan, a bastard vs. a bastard, an intelligent illiterate vs. an intelligent illiterate, an older man vs. a younger...
Shaffer's Pizarro is a 20th century existentialist in the body of a 16th century swineherd. Born a bastard, he is too poor to count as human in the society of Spain. At 59, he scorns any ideal of military chivalry he once held. Love is a mockery and faith a nagging memory of trust betrayed. Even the gold is "only a metal" to him, but he pursues it as Ahab pursued the white whale. Just as Ahab was obsessed with the mystery of existence, Pizarro is haunted by the emptiness of being. Both are horrified by the blank...
Nonetheless, in Scenarist James Poe's gritty adaptation of the cold war thriller by Mark Rascovich, Bedford appears to be powered by superpatriotism. Captain Richard Widmark is a right-wing fanatic whose hot head simmers harmlessly ("It's a lot of work being a mean bastard") until his ship sights a Soviet sub prowling territorial waters off Greenland. The captain can scarcely restrain his thirst for the kill as he trails his prey, determined to force the snoopy sub to surface for air and identify itself. The clear thinking is done for the Good Guys by a former...