Word: queenly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Leigh Woods' portrayal of King Leontes was one excellent feature of this production. He dominates the opening third of the play which centers around the suspected infidelity of his queen Hermoine and his brother King Polixenes of Bohemia. Leontes's jealous rage leads to his wife's execution (only faked as we later discover) and the banishment of her infant child. Perdita, Fair Perdita grows up in the care of simple shepherds, while her father exercises his sins in stern contrition...
...this is due precisely to the element of reconciliation. Its structure is vast and symphonically cohesive and organic. No play can equal the sustained intensity of the lyrical poetry, the unfailingly perfect interpenetration of theme, plot, character, time image, and metaphor. In Nilus and Tiber. East and West, queen and soldier, Shakespeare found brilliantly effective dramatic terms for love and war, surely, the most successful dramatic terms for any of his plays. The startling sensuo??sness of the language, which "hits the sense": the resor?? ?? the two death scenes: and, above all, the incomparable balance of the love...
...roles must either put on more or different clothes. The colored battle-screen made no contribution. More seriously, the court at Egypt was enervated and decidedly unexotic, unmajestic, uninercurial, and rather bland, tired, and timid. There was petulance instead of the passionate anger of a moody, selfish, regal, lover-queen. Miss Yakutis must avail herself, as I know she can, of a range of tones and rhythms, and soar and admonish and implore and pout and sing her way to complexity. The soldiers are unremittingly declamatory, laboring to render each line as massively as possible. They don't speak...
...again one singer stands out. His name is Lawrence Bakst, and he possesses one of the most attractive and effortless tenor voices around. It would be good to hear him more often in the Cambridge area. The other lead singers were generally effective, with Chalyce Brown an especially striking Queen. The chorus also sang well, but their acting was only to varying degrees appropriate. The entrance of the Queen's seven attendants, all smiling like airline stewardesses, was more appropriate to a Miss America pageant than a medieval pageant-opera...
...became solemn. "Over there flag-waving is a dirty word, but I would rather see our flag waved than burned!" That statement would have had the highest reading of the day if they'd had one of those applause meters like the ones they used to use on "Queen For A Day." Really an incredible response, and everyone waved his little flag at the same time...