Word: pamela
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Last week's star-studded production was often brilliant, but not everywhere right. There were superb performances by Pamela Brown as Shotover's snooty upper-class daughter, by Diana Wynyard as his masterfully radiant one, by Alan Webb, despite the hurdle of being the good man of the play. But there was merely competent performing too. And the last scene lacked any touch of magic, partly because it wore too lively an air, partly because Ben Edwards' all-purpose set placed it in a well-lighted sort of courtyard instead of a dusky, dreamlike garden...
Julie Harris, as a lonely and homely woman seeking a husband in America's sunshine capital, is immensely appealing in the central role. But the play itself is a travesty, a trite rehash of travel-folder propaganda and True Love Confessions, with a heavy touch of Pamela. The problems the play poses and agonizes could be solved with a quick letter to Dear Abby...
There are some better performances among the seven stars. As Shotover's indescribable daughter Hesione, Diana Wynward is splendid, and Pamela Brown is at least intriguing as her sister Ariadne, Lady Utterword. (They are not the "demon women" Hector describes, but that is Shaw's fault more than theirs.) Ellie Dunn, who begins as a romantic ingenue and becomes one of the quietly scary, hard-as-nails young women only Shaw could create, is played well enough by Diane Cilento...
...Loire chateau crammed with impressive horrors: the count's plaintive wife (Irene Worth), who fears for her life because of a portentous clause in her marriage contract; his child-mystic daughter (Annabel Bartlett), who paints pictures of "secret police" shooting arrows into St. Sebastian; a serpent-eyed sister (Pamela Brown) who blames her brother for the death of her fiance; and a dotty old dowager (Bette Davis) who writhes and flops about a cream-puffy bed, smokes cigars and has her morphine served up in toy Easter eggs from Paris. For the lonely professor, there is a lone delight...
...PAMELA MASON...