Word: ilex
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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UNDER THE ILEX...
...remark aptly summarizes much of the poignancy, torment and humor that marked the 16 messy years of their relationship, years out of which Clyde Talmage has distilled a rather too neat but very lively play. Under the Ilex, at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater, provides its only actors, Julie Harris and Leonard Frey, with roles rich in opportunities for virtuosity that they gratefully, even hungrily, exploit...
...feels almost churlish for observing that the historical truth is more complex and interesting than that, so effective is Under the Ilex as a theater piece. Talmage has a genuine talent for witty dialogue, Charles Nelson Reilly has directed with an inventiveness that is only occasionally overenthusiastic, and the actors are near perfect. One suspects there is more gallantry in Prey's Strachey, more simple romanticism and humanity in Harris' Carrington than either history or the script invested them with. Be that as it may, one also suspects that in a theatrical climate where the domestication of homoexoticism...