Word: hadrian
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...HADRIAN VII is a dramatization of Frederick William Rolfe's novel, Hadrian the Seventh. Playwright Peter Luke makes Rolfe the hero of his own story; he is an eccentric misfit who, after being rejected twice for the priesthood, develops the fantasy that he becomes Pope. In a stunning performance that is a paradigm of the elegant best in English acting style, Alec McCowen manages to evoke for Rolfe a sense of pity and affection...
...substitute for the old road, three new types of "road" have been developing for straight plays in recent years. The most established of these is the London route. Such plays as Hadrian the Seventh, Man in the Glass Booth, and The Homecoming were London successes brought to New York by American producers. This is not foolproof, since London hits can still be New York flops (such as Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane...
...HADRIAN VII is a deft dramatization by Peter Luke of fact and fantasy in the life of Frederick William Rolfe, a would-be priest who dreamed of being called first to the cloth and then to the throne of St. Peter-becoming the second English...
...that makes ordinary bombs look like firecrackers. Awaiting an interview with the Minister of War (Henry Thomas) of a kind of Balkan republic, he imagines how the interview will go and how his threats will be honored. The play therefore takes the form of megalomaniacal wish fulfillment, rather like Hadrian...
...legacy to the world was a strange, convoluted novel called Hadrian the Seventh, in which the frustrated priest developed a fantasy of being called first to the cloth and then to the Throne of St. Peter - becoming the second English Pope in history...