Word: mr
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...prevasive black. The scenes of hurried conspiracy after the Play Scene are done mostly on a bare, black stage swept with light across the front, as if to show that Hamlet had succeeded in rending the (over) elaborate facade of cheerful, orderly civilization that Claudius (with the help of Mr. Benthall) had built around his own rotting soul. This stroke of austerity is the most meaningful--and least pretty--scenic effect that Miss Crud-das has contrived. By some, or no, coincidence, the best acting of the evening occurs around this part of the play...
John Neville's pallid Hamlet is very much in tune with the production--not a hair is out of place. Mr. Neville plays not passion and fury, but sweet, mild melancholy. Hamlet's brilliant sarcasm, which should flash like lightning to relieve his overcharged soul, pales into insignificance; the clouds that hang on the soul of this Hamlet are the merest, most forgettable wisps...
...director, however, must bear some responsibilty here. If an actor is to play the Fishmonger Scene sprawling in a comfortable chair, his leg thrown casually over its arm, it will not be easy for him to give the impression that he has something on his mind. Mr. Benthall has cut Hamlet's line about the murdered Polonius: "I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room"--and this is a sure sign that he intended to give us not Shakespeare's Hamlet, goaded by a magnificent saeve indignatio, but the charming exquisite foisted on us by certain critics...
...Here, Slob." Something about the way Shelley speaks-a profession of diffidence, a perfection of timing-suggests that everyone in the audience shares his feeling. And as simply as that, Shelley puts Mister Kelly's Chicago nightclub or Mr. Sullivan's fans in his pocket...
Perhaps Supermanship's greatest merit lies in the fact that it should stimulate readers to develop Lifemanship ploys of their own. The first to practice with is obviously Counter-Potters. The possible scene is a cocktail party. Hostess: "And now I'd like you to meet Mr. Potter, the author." Apprentice Lifeman: "Crocker, did you say? Are you the fellow who writes all those cookbooks...