Word: leigh
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When Laurence Olivier & Vivien Leigh decided to do Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra for last summer's Festival of Britain, Stage Designer Roger Furse jokingly suggested that they do Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra as well. They smiled at the idea but were quickly haunted by it; and in due time the two Cleopatras became the sensation of the festival. Long before they opened in Manhattan last week, to rave reviews and a $900,000 advance, they had become a Broadway sensation as well...
...Olivier, indeed, represents Caesar as stooped, weary, elderly-an excellent piece of acting, but a doubtful interpretation. For (what surely Shaw never intended) Olivier's Caesar is a man past being tempted by a minx, rather than one who declines the gambit for fear of being hurt. Vivien Leigh's Cleopatra is a willful, naughty, coaxing, charming child, more fully characterized than Lilli Palmer's perfect cuddling kitten, but almost as much enfant terrible as budding jemme fatale...
...impulsive, audacious, angry, half-aging lion and half-untamed whelp; he is not-as Godfrey Tearle was so brilliantly-an assured leader with the weakened fiber and amorous susceptibilities of late middle age. As Antony, Olivier is a good actor, but not the architect of a commanding role. Vivien Leigh's Cleopatra is an all-too-believable enchantress -mercurial, irresistible, even royal; only not of Shakespearean depth and stature. Actress Leigh mistakes mere emotionalism for intensity; she intones-while half-violating - some of her greatest lines...
...Streetcar Named Desire is as dynamic as the stage production. Vivian Leigh and Marlon Brando reenact the Tennessee Williams story on the Astor screen...
...Streetcar Named Desire. An unvarnished adaptation of Tennessee Williams' prizewinning Broadway hit; with Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter (TIME, Sept...