Word: goneril
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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...
...surely exists in the world. Old age is no guarantee of wisdom or largeness of spirit. But somewhere before a surprise ending with more deaths than Act V of Hamlet, it becomes evident that Author Amis is enjoying his caricatured geriatricks in some way that might be appropriate to Goneril and Regan in King Lear but is simply hateful in Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage. Graham Greene once wrote that when trying to refine the pangs and foibles of men and women into fiction, a novelist must have a sliver of ice in his heart. A sliver of ice, yes. A lump...
...result, Lear's descent into madness after Goneril (Rosalind Cash) and Regan (Ellen Holly) turn him out of the very houses he gave them is distressingly smooth, almost melodramatic. Jones never touches the universal and timeless fears of generational revolt that are implicit in the play. Indeed, much of the time his work seems more elocutionary than emotional. He relies too heavily on wowing the audience with his rich, supple voice...
Vocally, however, she is not strong enough--the same fault she showed here a decade ago when trying the not unsimilar part of Goneril in King Lear. In talking of the murder plot, when Macbeth asks, "If we should fail?," her reply--"We fail?"--lacks the foreceful scorn, the reassuring incredulity needed to prop his weakening resolve. A sensual Lady Macbeth is perfectly valid, but the role requires a decided steak of masculinity, such as captured so imposingly in the portrayals of Dame Judith Anderson, Mrs. Tore Segelcke, and Siobhan McKenna...
Brook is constantly aware of the possibilities in film for more supple dramatic movement, and he is able to use a technique as fundamental as parallel montage to alter completely the dramatic rhythms. A long speech of Goneril's is intercut with shots of Lear riding furiously on the hunt, so that by the time the single speech is finished, the relationship of father and eldest daughter is completely redefined. And when Lear first realizes the emasculating ingratitude of Goneril and Regan ("O, reason not the need!"), Brook moves toward a close-up of the king's eyes that measure...