Word: goneril
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While there, she gets just mad enough to cry. The episode might be more affecting if Ruth Gordon had not made Mrs. Lord just as odious as her Goneril-and-Regan duo of daughters. As every contemporary playgoer knows, the family is an heir-conditioning unit: bitches beget bitches. The denouement is embarrassing, as Mrs. Lord marries one of those beamish Balkan boys with a rich grandmother fixation...
...supporting cast is infinitely better than that of the original production. Patrick Hines has made enormous strides with his Gloucester. Patricia Hamilton (Goneril) and Mary Hara (Regan) are a vast improvement over their predecessors. And--though I loathe comparisons--Richard Mathews surpasses Lester Rawlins, whom I considered the finest Fool I had ever seen. Not only has Mr. Mathews managed to make clear every pun, analogy, and double entente, but he has added to the character an element of such deep love that one can almost feel his own pain as he chastises, scolds, and warns his master...
...huge laughs on such lines as "Let copulation thrive;" "Ha! Goneril, with a white beard!" (to Gloucester), and "Let me wipe it (my hand) first; it smells of mortality." is difficult to imagine, but Mr. Carnovsky accomplishes it. And he thereby undermines the dignity, stature, and power he works so hard to establish in the early parts of the play and achieves right from Act I, Scene I--which any actor who has tackled the role will tell you is almost unplayable for credibility...
...women are not so satisfactory. Deborah Fortson is lovely as Cordelia and moves well in the part, but she does not always speak to full effectiveness. Cordelia, at any rate, the vessel of all love and virtue, may be a more difficult role than Lear. Her sisters Goneril and Regan, Madelon Hambro and Emily Levine, are excellent bitches but bad actresses. They read lines in a shrewish monotone which neither entertains nor shocks, and they fail to distinguish between themselves so that their characters, except for different dresses, might be identical. Regan should be the softer, nicer...
...women are not so satisfactory. Deborah Fortson is lovely as Cordelia and moves well in the part, but she does not always speak to full effectiveness. Cordelia, at any rate, the vessel of all love and virtue, may be a more difficult role than Lear. Her sisters Goneril and Regan, Madelon Hambro and Emily Levine, are excellent bitches but bad actresses. They read lines in a shrewish monotone which neither entertains nor shocks, and they fail to distinguish between themselves so that their characters, except for different dresses, might be identical. Regan should be the softer, nicer...