Word: duked
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...DIMLY LIT corner, a courtier clutches a skull and caresses its sockets. Alas, poor Yorick? No--this time the hero is Vindice (vengeance) and skull is that of his love, Gloriana, poisoned by the wicked Duke. Cyril Tourner's The Revenger's Tragedy, while reminiscent of Hamlet, is of a distinct genre: it is not so much a tragedy as a horror play in which vengeance, severing the ties of love and kinship, sweeps its victims toward their own destruction...
Atkinson attempts modernization, but his efforts lack consistency. Lacoste shirts for the virile sons of the Duke and frumpy Talbot's dresses for the more matronly characters, while externally updating the actors, do not make them any more believable down deep. The use of popular music at climactic scenes is likewise questionable: in the final scene, when vengeance is pounding recklessly towards fulfillment, the Talking Heads' "Psycho-Killer" erupts out of nowhere as servants sprinkle the grappling bodies with red glitter. The ploy only adds a dash of Saturday Night Fever to an already macabre event. And the updating...
Only two characters come close to achieving that timelessness and universality which make a character endure. Ben Evett, who plays the role of Vindice with puckish bravado, and Peter Hansen, the Duke's bastard son of conniving mien, carry the play through its weaker moments. When Vindice again draws forth Gloriana's skull--this time as a weapon to poison the Duke, who unsuspecting that she is only a "shell of death" will try to steal a kiss from her in a dark corridor--he handles the scene with a deft blend of madness and humor that make the murder...
Goodman, who is taking the term off from Duke to work at a Washington lobbying office, said he wanted to come to Harvard because it has a better government department and a larger endowment than Duke. "I also think it's great that there are Harvard Clubs all over...
...Nothing is wrong with Duke," he added yesterday. "I can sing Dixie, and Duke has a beautiful campus...