Word: byronism
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After graduating from Dartmouth in 1966 and the University of Minnesota Law School in 1970, he won a prestigious clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White, but then took an unusual turn, doing a stint in the Marines from...
...Byron should provide a jaded foil to Bysshe's youthful ardor; he needs to exhibit at least the shadow of his past energy so that the audience can glimpse the man who said, "What I earn my brains I spend by my bollocks." His caustic, irreverent lines carry Rigby a long way, but they can't make up for his ennervated delivery and static physical presence. Instead of dominating the stage as he should, Rigby leaves a vacuum...
...between the two poets fails to engage the audience. The sexual tension between the two men suggested by the text is missing, as is a sense of development in their friendship, so that the older poet seems unaffected by Bysshe's drowning at the end. Rigby choses to deliver Byron's final lines over his friend's body in a defeated murmur instead of in the desperate shout called for by the script. Although this interpretation is consistent with his overall performance, it mutes the power of the scene...
Shea has a stronger voice and a more compelling stage presence. When he is not cowering in Byron's shadow, he delivers his monologues with feverish intensity. He is especially impressive in his final monologue, in which he recites a chaos of fragments from his poems, counting out the meter on his fingers...
...Byron's lover Claire functions as little more a doll to be traded back and forth between the two men. Bennis gives this limited role an air of desperate gaiety, bringing a suggestion of self-awareness to Claire's naivete...