Word: hume
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HAMLET. Although Richard Burton as Hamlet and Hume Cronyn as Polonius burnish all the richness of language, wit and humor of the play, this revival, and specifically Burton's Hamlet, lacks the burning passion, the mind-tossed anguish, the self-divided will that Hamlet must have to be a true prince of tragedy...
HAMLET. Although Richard Burton as Hamlet and Hume Cronyn as Polonius burnish all the richness of language, wit and humor of the play, this revival, and specifically Burton's Hamlet, lacks the burning passion, the mind-tossed anguish, the self-divided will that Hamlet must have to be a true prince of tragedy...
With a few exceptions the supporting cast might be accused of nonsupport. Hume Cronyn's Polonius is devilishly fine, a battered human filing cabinet of platitudes who has achieved diplomatic immunity to everything but the sound of his own voice. And George Rose's First Gravedigger is a roguish, low-comic word prankster. But Alfred Drake's King Claudius is too suavely ingratiating to have killed a brother and seized a crown. He is more like mine host of the Elsinore Hilton. Eileen Her-lie is a middle-aged matron with diction; it is easier to imagine...
...Polonius, as Hume Cronyn sees him, is a buffoon, who turns most of his scenes with Hamlet into slapstick comedy. Cronyn wrings from the part all the humor that is there and a good deal, I think, that is not. He is Polonius from Hamlet's point of view, a "tedious old fool," without a trace of the skilled counselor who had been invaluable to Denmark...
Crackling Classrooms. What typifies Swarthmore is a passionate intellectual jousting that makes seminars crackle. When a professor recently remarked, "Rousseau doesn't make the distinctions Hume does," a typical coed fiercely whispered, "Damn right!" Although half the students are on intercollegiate athletic teams, Swarthmore is a school where varsity-lettermen refuse to wear varsity letters. An alumnus proudly recalls four years of debating with a philosophy professor on ontological proof, "with each of us reversing his position at least twice...