Word: oedipus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...prose, only to be transported by the dazzling beauty of the choral speeches in verse. At first the characters permitted me to relax in my reveries by their well-studied, careful excellence of voice. Mark Bramhall, Harvard's leading man of the stage and by rights cast as Oedipus the young man, spoke gloriously in his part, always ready with the right tone and right phrasing, always exploding with outraged pride at the proper moment...
...skill of the actors and director grew more consummate--and more distracting. Gestures were added to the speeches, and movement subtly wended its way onto the stage until I begin to follow hands and not words. I saw beautiful red lights flashed on the back-drop as miserable Oedipus stumbled wretchedly inside to this wife's death at the end, but I did not hear Mark Bramhall's screaming speech. I am sure it was perfectly spoken, but I wish I hadn't been so fascinated by the blood...
...ingredients for the second half of the program were the same, since Hamlin used almost exactly the same cast and made the expectable substitution of John Lithgow for Bramhall as Oedipus the old man. In its own way, the performance of Colonus in the Fitzgerald translation was much better, but it was also much less satisfying. Colonus is a much more complicated tragedy than the earlier Rex, and the character of the aged, sightless, beaten man makes almost impossible demands on the actor...
Helena loves Demetrius who loves Hermia who loves Lysander. Bottom is a timid bachelor who despairs of finding an old-fashioned girl and carries a torch for his long-lost mother ("Oh, Oedipus Rex, you're so right! right! right!"). When romantic moondust falls on all the wrong parties, the enchanted wood near Athens fills up with entangling misalliances...
...boon or pick a bone, the man of action has always known where to go and whom to complain to. Job, for example, went straight to the top, while others took their problems to lesser officials, settled, like Juliet, for a friar; like Aladdin, for a genie; like Oedipus, for an oracle; or like Dorothy, for an available wizard. It is only modern man-charged with an item he did not purchase, in arrears on accounts he has long since paid, his mail misdirected, his drains stopped up, toaster broken or license expired-who does not know where to turn...