Word: lyric
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...When I am here with Father, it seems that no one would want to listen to me." This painful admission slips from the lips of Catherine Sloper, the almost preternaturally shy heroine of The Heiress, currently playing at Boston's Lyric Stage. Catherine feels this way for good reason. Her father, Dr. Austin Sloper, is your basic 19th-century Frigidaire, almost biologically incapable of emotion except when criticizing his daughter or remembering the wife who died giving birth...
...film, struck a deeper popular nerve than more direct translations of James's story. Its 1947 Broadway debut was a rousing success, William Wyler's 1949 film adaptation won an Oscar for Olivia de Havilland, and 1994's Broadway sell-out revival won a trove of Tonys. The Lyric Stage production, directed by Polly Hogan and starring Paula Plum as Catherine and Michael Bradshaw as Dr. Sloper, deserves similar accolades...
...some superlative artistic advocates. Like the Wyler film and the Broadway productions, this Heiress boasts an impeccable cast and a sensitive director who nearly overcome the flaws in the script with the sheer emotional power of their commitment to the work. As befits the story of a wallflower, the Lyric takes flawed material and makes of it something magnificent...
Still, the cast and crew of the Lyric Stage display a broad-based and almost unimpeachable craftsmanship. Besides the major characters, all of whom are poignantly acted with psychic ambiguities intact, Hogan allows her supporting characters to shine. The full-blooded humanity of Ferrini's Aunt Elizabeth or Bobbie Steinbach's Mrs. Montgomery are intrinsically satisfying, but also serve to highlight Catherine's comparative sallowness...
...only one instrument were present. The placement of the cellos between the second violins and the violas allowed for a heightened clarity, producing a concentrated, almost sinewy tone that typified the Allegro Moderato. The first movement elapsed without any fiery outbursts; Gatti instead focused intently upon the lyric strains of the oboe and clarinet. His conducting was comprised of a fairly conventional fluidity of motion. His baton described tightly restrained circles throughout much of the movement, and only with the arrival of a succession of full-orchestra chords did one view great, ardent sweeping motions that subsided as quickly...