Word: goneril
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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From the wings enter two crimson-draped women, who commence a ritualistic dance in the darkness surrounding Lear. The audience, distracted from the old king's contortions, stares into the gloom and realizes that Regan and Goneril have joined their father on the heath...
Most of the cast is competent but uninspired, and clearly a bit confused about how to interpret the play. Kirsten Giroux's Goneril is a shallow, cold bitch-queen; Janet Rodger's Regan a bit more of a bitchy housewife. Henry Woronicz's Edmund swaggers like a comic hero, an illegitimate Petruchio. Harold Levine's Cornwall is a snivelling rat of a villain, more disgusting than threatening...
...chosen on the basis of their comic rather than musical talents. Exhibiting a superb sense of timing, Debra Smigel delivers the best performance of the night as Dr. Olson, the pompous social scientist who is helpless without her Ph.D. Jackie Osherow has some fine moments as the fruit-crazed Goneril, and Sarah McCluskey as Adeline pronounces some less than stellar lines with a cute Marilyn Monroe pout...
Though the cast is far from blameless, the graver error lies with Director Anthony Page. When Lear goes mad on the storm-blistered heath, it is not because his daughters Goneril and Regan have turned their backs on him but because God has. Shakespeare means us to know that the universe itself has reached its apocalyptic hour, and he asks his white-locked King to look upon the dethronement of all order, a grotesque, absurd, horrifying realm of meaninglessness. Instead, Page has encouraged Morris Carnovsky to stress the "foolish fond old man" in Lear, petulant, bewildered and sorely vexed...
...daughters scarcely help. Goneril (Jane White) spits out her lines like a fishwife. As Regan, Maria Tucci seems to be tapping an unseen toe in overwrought pique, and Michele Shay's Cordelia might have strayed onstage from an elocution class. Only Lee Richardson's loyal Kent seems equally loyal to Shakespeare. The rest outshine the dark with unlit candles...