Word: burtonizing
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APPLAUSE interrupts dialogue from Private Lives more than 20m times, but the cheers, giggles and whistles don't necessary follow Noel Coward's lines. Instead, the audience listens to Elyot Chase (Richard Burton) ask Amanda (Elizabeth Taylor), his ex-wife whether she thinks they'll ever marry each other again. "I don't know, "Taylor drawls, as the audience grows increasingly expectant, "Marriage scares me really...
...Elyot and Amanda, Liz and Dick were divorced, just like Elyot and Amanda, could Liz and Dick get back together again? Actually, they could, and did, and their second marriage ended badly, too. But if audience reaction serves as any barometer, then America hungers for a third chapter when Burton and Taylor first kiss in Act One, the audience whistles and cheers, as if it intends to will a romantic rapprochement between two of this country's most talked about celebrities...
Throughout the evening, the audience thrusts itself so insistently and so happily on the actors that Private Lives becomes less a revival of a wonderful play, than a theatrical event of the campiest sort that proves more than a little embarrassing. Apparently, Taylor and Burton's private lives are all too public, and everyone involved--from the two principals to the balcony whistlers--seems excited about the possibility of making the cover of an upcoming People magazine...
...final act's breakfast scene, with the varyingly confused, offended or bemused Chases and Prynnes, proceeds as smoothly as it does quickly. Katselas also deftly balances the opening exchanges between the four; their exits and entrances are well-timed, although slowed by the audience's initial reactions to Burton (who looks graceful and distinguished in a tuxedo, though his shoe-heels are about three inches too high for the 1930s of Private Lives) and Taylor, who enters confidently in a low-cut nightgown and robe. But, in keeping with the tone of the evening. Taylor soon changes into a Theoni...
...Much of Private Lives' fun results from watching Sybil evolve as the play unfolds. Walker's confidence--and gestures that skirt the melodramatic but manage to remain realistic firmly anchor her character, if only in space. But as good as Walker is, she can't compete with Taylor and Burton, which is not to say that Taylor and Burton are all that good...