Word: lear
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...deal with the problem of parents estranged from their children. At a time when the Beatles were singing the baual "She's Leaving Home," the point of which was that parents have to give more than money to their children, Dylan was penning the rock equivalent of King Lear...
...high drama of the opening is reduced to situation comedy. John's comic exasperation in teaching the plot of Antigone to slow-witted Winston seems out of place, almost blasphemous beside the agonized beginning. The comic relief here is unbearable, perhaps because there are only two actors; King Lear turns into Falstaff before our eyes. The Island is the less popular play (it only plays twice a week against six showings of Sizwe). It has less of a story line, and it's more cerebral. The introduction of the arguments of Antigone early in the play is done with...
...seven years, Norman Lear has longed to change all that. In between producing Maude, Good Times and The Jeffersons, he mulled over the soaps. Then last fall CBS put up $100,000 for a couple of episodes. He told writers to work up something with mass murder, exhibitionism and impotence. They thought he was joking, but he denies it: "It isn't satire-that's five minutes on a variety show. I wasn't trying to get comedy from mass murder or impotence -they aren't funny-but from people's reactions to them...
Finally, Ann Marcus, a veteran soap writer, came up with a script that met all Lear's requirements. He then persuaded a reluctant Louise Lasser, Woody Allen's ex-wife and co-star in Bananas, to play Mary. "I was a little afraid of the material at first," says Lasser, whose lethargic portrayal of the permanently stunned Mary is a comic turn on its own. Before long, she fell in love with what she calls "the Frankenstein soap...
...Mary has attracted inquiries from local stations, but no takers. Lear is a patient man, however. It took him four years to get rid of that show nobody even wanted to look at let alone buy. Its name: All in the Family...