Word: leightons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Much Ado About Nothing. Shakespeare's play is a bore in everything except its prickly-pear love story, and this becomes a total delight as played by Sir John Gielgud and Margaret Leighton...
...contemptible hero, a motiveless villain, a tediously improbable main plot. Happily, what academics term the subplot-the prickly-pear romance of Benedick and Beatrice-is one of the most delightful things in all Shakespeare. And it can never have seemed more a delight than when John Gielgud and Margaret Leighton are swapping insults and moving blindfolded toward the altar...
...they rise to the bait, Actor Gielgud and Actress Leighton also rise to the top of their bents. At sparring they are perfectly matched, at witty detail brilliantly mated. If added tribute goes to Actress Leighton, it is for a certain marvelously sustained manner: she is all hoity-toity airiness and verve. Though the rest of the production, barring George Rose's lively Dogberry, is much of a piece with the rest of the play, both are well worth putting up with for the sake of the stars...
...admitted, he is not an ideal Benedick. The part demands more brio than he has inside him to give. He plays the clarinet when he should be blowing a trumpet. Yet he was careful to choose a Beatrice that would properly balance the see-saw, in this case Margaret Leighton...
...Roberts' stunning, three-story set, complete with lanterns and garden swing. As Beatrice and Benedick, Rosemary Harris and Barry Morse made a strong pair of unwilling lovers, spitting out their wit with clarity and verve. They were less reliable than their C.D.F. counterparts, but at times surpassed the Gielgud-Leighton team. (Alfred Drake still remains the best Benedick this country has seen in years.) Some of the supporting men were poor, but the women were better than Gielgud...