Word: kerrs
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...that all the replacements save one are improvements over their predecessors. Most notably among these is the role of the protagonist, Leontes. Last year's production was seriously harmed by the ravaged voice with which Donald Madden essayed Leontes. Now the part is in the masterly care of Philip Kerr, who has returned to the AST company after a regrettable absence...
When the AST first did the play, in 1958, we got a pretty fine though hammy Leontes from John Colicos. But Kerr's Leontes is the one we've been waiting for. The part makes for-midable demands on any player, but merits every bit of effort required. Bernard Shaw once wrote, in a letter to the actress Ellen Terry, "Leontes is a magnificent part, worth fifty Othellos (Shakespear knew nothing about jealousy when he wrote Othello), as modern as Ibsen, and full of wonderful music." The slur on Othello was poppycock, but Shaw was otherwise right on the mark...
Whatever the cause, things happen fast in this play; there is not time for leisurely exploration of motivations and developments--such as we get in Othello. So the onset of jealousy here is rather sudden, yet a fine player like Kerr can make it work. It must be remembered that The Winter's Tale is a tale, that Shakespeare was here, as in the other three late romances, presenting a myth, where there is more emphasis on the parade of incidents and their implications than on depth of character. If the performers can round out their roles, so much...
...Kerr has a wonderfully trained voice, alway intelligible whether piano, mezzoforte, or fortissimo. And he does not succumb to the temptation to keep yelling constantly. He knows how to move, too, as when in the grips of neurosis he prowls around the circular platform like a caged animal. And he dares elicit a smile when he sputters at Paulina's husband, "I charged thee that she should not come about me," and then adds, sotto voce, "I knew she would." He also managers to ring true when he strips to the waist, takes off his crown and grovels...
...could have recognized, back in May of 1960, such a hardy long-distance runner? Certainly not the critics. Walter Kerr, writing in the now defunct New York Herald Tribune, thought the show "a little less than satisfactory," and the Times's Brooks Atkinson found it "the sort of thing that loses magic the longer it endures...