Word: mccowen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Mark's Gospel. Gospel means good news, and rarely has the word more compellingly been made flesh than in Alec McCowen's incomparable rendering of the King James text. The actor will play a return engagement in 1979. Mark it well...
...staging of Bible material, like Alec McCowen's recital of the Gospel of St. Mark [Sept. 18], can have unexpected results. An actor had delivered the 23rd Psalm before an enthralled audience. Days later he heard an old rector read it in church. "The Lord is my Shepherd ..." After the service he grasped the rector's hand with the words, "Sir, I know the Psalm, but you know the Shepherd...
Fine actors, like fine singers, can be divided into recital artists and operatic rafter ringers. McCowen, 53, with his refined emotional pitch, his dryly witty intelligence and his meticulous craft, is one of the recitalists. He has had showpiece roles-notably the title role in Hadrian VII and the psychiatrist in the original London production of Equus-but even these called more for finesse than fire...
...Mark's Gospel McCowen has found a vehicle perfectly suited to his range. For the material most resembles an extended song cycle. Nuance, focus and miniaturized drama are the order of the evening. Piety aside, the broader and deeper emotions are not often invoked. The performance unavoidably remains a bit rarefied, which is no doubt why it is booked for a three-week run in the small (249 seats) theater of Manhattan Marymount College. After a similarly modest beginning in London, however, it escalated into one of last spring's solid West End hits. McCowen is scheduled...
Gospel, of course, means good news-which these plans certainly are for the theatergoers in both countries. As delivered by McCowen, Mark is a triumph of the human voice and the English language. - Christopher Porterfield