Word: lear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ever since John Wilkes Booth proved unreliable America has been wary of itinerant Shakspearean actors. But Morris Carnovsky in his two years of touring in Lear since the original Stratford, Connecticut triumph, has reinstated their good name. Carnovsky, now a Brandeis faculty member, has mounted a Lear at the Spingold Theatre which is endued with the high finish and control that was often absent in the hastily-arranged touring performances...
Working on a slanting Elizabethan-style stage, Carnovsky's Lear commands all stage movement, dominating the vertical and letting lesser figures play on a horizontal plane...
...voice dives, soares and trembles with his role. On the throne, his voice is deep, yet forced and cracked like Lear's authority. At Regan's castle, Lear mutters and sputters in tone anger. As he rages against the storm the voice nears a shriek. At the end it is a quavering sigh...
Carnovsky's control is never more evident than in Lear's physical senility. The king flings an arm upward to be imperous, but the fingers tremble in the stagelight. A fist shaken in anger seems to swing limply for an eternity as Lear's age vainly fights inertia. The movements are often ungainly or painfully awkward. Carnovsky is never afraid to make Lear look ridiculous...
Directors, actors and playwrights are cross-pollinating all over the theatrical garden. Peter Brook directed Flower Drum Song, The Visit, Irma La Douce and King Lear (with Paul Scofield) in New York, and he has designed productions for Co vent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera. For the movies, he directed Olivier in Beggar's Opera, Belmondo and Moreau in Moderate Cantabile, and Lord of the Flies. The controversial Marat/Sade is also his. Robert Bolt, who wrote the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, and who wrote the play A Man for All Seasons, is now cranking...