Word: polonius
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Shakespeare open season for 1939-40 started last week* when Maurice Evans reopened on Broadway in his last season's hit, an uncut Hamlet. It proved once again a much more tumultuous and exciting play than the usual cut version. Interesting minor change: This season Polonius wears spectacles, a detail which caused a great to-do among anachronism-chasers until they ascertained that glasses were worn in Shakespeare's day. Nobody seemed to care whether they were wtirn in Hamlet...
...hearing Baccalaureate sermons, class orations, and alumni admonitions, the seniors are apt to feel as Laertes must have when Polonius delayed his leaving with a string of paternal advice. They do not care to listen; they want to leave-after the celebrating is over...
...reaction from the involved psychological analyses so commonly foisted upon the original character in recent years, Mr. Evans' interpretation is vigor ous, and comparatively speaking, simple. To the ghost, Hamlet shows a nature capable of passionate hatred; to his uncle, he is actively hostile, not sullen or melancholy; to Polonius, he is flip, humorous; to Ophelia, deeply in love; to his mother, pitiless, scornful. Even when alone, Hamlet the melancholy philosopher is subordinate to Hamlet the emotional youth...
...minor characters and the direction only the highest praise can be given. Particularly in Polonius (George Graham), whose part has benefitted greatly from the producer's unwillingness to apply the blue pencil, has the subtlety of Shakespeare's characterization been caught. When giving his instructions (I-III) to Laertes (Wesley Addy)--who is excellent in his humorous indifference to his father's preaching, but none the less convincing in his pursuit of revenge--Polonius is at once sage and verbose. To Ophelia (Katherine Locke),--who is appropriately fragile, and who contributes a mad scene (IV-V) as effective...
...offering the spectator all the clues, it gives him a far better chance to guess for himself. In the usual acting version, Hamlet confines itself to a single complex character study; uncut, it becomes also a swirling, tumultuous drama of court life and court intrigue. Such characters as Polonius, Fortinbras, the King take on added size. Denmark's dark, uneasy political fortunes constantly impinge upon the action. Some of the problems which have haunted generations of scholars, but scarcely occurred to casual playgoers, suddenly stand out: why, for example, the murdered King's brother...