Word: papp
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This production initiates an admirable transatlantic lend-lease plan between Joseph Papp's Public Theater and Britain's Royal Court Theater. As might be expected, the entire cast is best-of-breed...
...keys to Nelligan as an actress, says Joseph Papp, whose Public Theater brought Plenty to the U.S., is her "tremendous self-confidence," and that, apparently, is something she has always had. Brought up in London, Ont., where her father worked for the city parks system, she seems to have been bottle-fed selfesteem. "There were six children," she says. "But my mother always made me feel that I would do something important, which stood me in good stead." She cannot remember a time when she did not work hard, and when she was only 16, she entered the University...
These women were and are accomplished actresses. Diane Venora, who is fumbling with Shakespeare's greatest role at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, is an unseasoned neophyte of 29 who is woefully miscast in this ever-so-demanding part. If the intent of the casting was to display the womanly aspects of Hamlet's nature, this production fails abominably. Venora is the most macho Hamlet to appear in years. For much of the evening, she struts about like a fascist bullyboy...
...Papp's humdrum direction, only the moments of lowdown violence stand out. Hamlet stabs Polonius (George Hall) as he stands behind the arras not once but repeatedly in an orgiastic frenzy. In the dueling finale with Laertes, Venora kicks him in the rear, scarcely the mark of the "noble Dane." In the bedroom scene, this Hamlet pummels Queen Gertrude (Kathleen Widdoes) so bruisingly that when the poignant line "How is it with you, lady?" is uttered, the audience breaks into semi-suppressed laughter, having witnessed the beating the lady has taken...
...Joseph Papp's Public Theater, where Von Richthofen is housed, has been in a serious dramatic slump for the past two seasons. Surely, the one way not to soar again is to jettison sense, taste and judgment. -By T.E. Kalem