Word: gielguds
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...Gielgud, the director, hews more closely to the conventional line. The detachment is here more appropriate since it is Ivanov's detachment from the other characters, not merely the audience's detachment from the play. Gielgud orchestrates for a marvelous band of Chekhovian eccentrics-Dillon Evans as a monomaniacal bridge player, Ethel Griffies as a sour-faced marriage broker, Ronald Radd in a somewhat deeper role as the manager of Ivanov's estate, a man whose visions of wealth are only equalled by his incompetence...
...saunter about, titter, and listen through their earhorns to the tittering of others. At the fall of the first-act curtain this same group swarms in with sparklers, pouring around the shocked Vivien Leigh who is staring at Sasha (Jennifer Hilary), the neighbor's daughter, in Ivanov's arms. Gielgud jars the audience, giving them perhaps two seconds to take in the entire scene...
Rouben Ter-Arutunian's settings help immensely in Gielgud's staging of group scenes. The first-act outdoor set uses the depth of the Shubert stage with four planes of trees, but keeps the acting area forward and close to the audience, opening the stage more than is the custom in the conventional Chekhov...
...elements of Gielgud's Ivanov interfere with the general tone of the production--the two younger women and the problem of Ivanov's age. Miss Leigh and Miss Hilary try hard in extremely vapid roles. Chekhov was always weak at creating women who were neither old nor eccentric, and at this early stage of his career he was terrible. Miss Leigh might have played Ivanov's genteel, tubercular wife as a little more ill and a little less sweet, but simply coughing louder could not have added depth to a structurally shallow role. Miss Hilary is given two types...
...problem is also an inherent one, inherent in the 62-year old Gielgud. Ivanov is supposed to be 35 at the time of his suicide. The surrender of youth to failure is part of his tragedy. Gielgud adds ten years to Ivanov and unavoidably softens the character's desperation. The confession of a man of 45 that he is turning gray is not poignant, but standard...