Word: gielgud
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...partisans were lashed into such a frenzy of jealous adulation that they staged a riot in Astor Place which took 21 lives. Last week English Leslie Howard brought to Manhattan his version of Hamlet, set it up five blocks away from the theatre that had been housing English John Gielgud's Hamlet for a month (TIME, Oct 19). Not a life was lost. There was no riot. There was no rivalry. The two performances were not in the same class...
Graceful, great-nosed John Gielgud had chosen for the background of his fine impersonation some rather sombre, common place sets and costumes of Stuart England. Equally commonplace is the gaudier Howard mise en scène which represents 11th Century Denmark. The two productions, however, are separated by more than five centuries of decorating history...
...antithesis of Actor Gielgud, Actor Howard robs Hamlet of every shred of dignity and nobility: by being peevish with Polonius' garrulity instead of simply bored; by being quizzical when he means to be sardonic; by indicating neither method in his madness nor madness in his methods; by delivering most of his soliloquies while loping about the stage and peering under the furniture; by failing at any point to convince the audience it is watching anything more than Leslie Howard walking through a part. Unanimously, metropolitan critics found star and production remarkably unexciting, agreed with the Post's scholarly...
...William Shakespeare who assures us that the entire production is under his personal supervision. Before very long Shylock, bursting in upon Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is required to account for his presence in "Hamlet". Later there is depicted a feud in the best Montague-Capulet fashion, between John Gielgud and Leslie Howard, each of whom gives Beatrile Lillie a front seat ticket for the other's performance, each knowing that the performance will prove only a minor side-show to that amiable woman's extraordinary volubility. But Mr. Shakespeare is soon retired to an honorary presidency, and the dazzling variety...
...certainly intended his Prince to have runs throughout this entire production. At times the wit is biting, at times it is gentle, and again there is a touch of rich whole-hearted merry-making. It seems almost as though Mr. Howard had determined to avoid the pit-fall John Gielgud's humorless characterization of Hamlet has apparently fallen into in New York...