Word: cate
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Hedda, played here by Holly Cate, is never a bore to watch. Cate portrays Hedda with proportionate coldness, but wisely refrains from histrionics. Hedda's fury isn't the tumultuous kind of a Lady Macbeth or a Medea. In her appropriately antiseptic delivery, Cate invokes the quiet strength of Ibsen's heroine...
Hedda seems to be convinced that everything she touches turns ridiculous and vile. Actually, the show suffers when Cate is out of reach. With few exceptions, the rest of the cast seems to dote on the wild fancies of the beautiful Hedda. They come to life with her fiery entrances and languish miserably in her absence...
When Blanche (Ellen Bledsoe) comes to New Orleans on a "temporary" visit to her sister Stella (Holly Cate)--whom she has ignored for several years--the situation is not a pretty one. Blanche seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the change of climate from Laurel, Mississippi to New Orleans squalor does her no good. And when she meets her brother-in-law Stanley (Andrew Gardner), a tough and muscular man who instantly sees through her pretense, things get even rougher...
...Stella, Cate may not have as developed a part as Bledsoe, but also does not aim at a strong performance. At the most serious moments, her voice tremors as if she were going to laugh. She also overdoes the sentimentality of the part, falling into Stanley's arms in a way more appropriate to a soap opera than to high-class drama...
...Holly Cate is impressive in the role of manipulative mother, warning her less-confident daughter (Rebecca Clark) against missing the first meeting of the Junior Assemblies. "Once you miss," she coldly scolds, "you never catch up." Cate also manages well in one of the play's few non-WASP roles. As a teenaged friend of Sarah (Caroline Bicks), she proclaims the dining room "wicked nice...