Word: roles
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the National Theater opens its new quarters on March 16 with a production of Hamlet with Albert Finney in the title role, the occasion will mark both the end and the beginning of an impossibly protracted dream. The first serious proposal for a national theater was made in 1848 by a London publisher named Effingham Wilson. As long ago as 1938, Bernard Shaw had actually secured the deeds for a prospective national theater site...
Complemented intellectually by Kenneth Tynan in the subsidiary role of literary manager, Olivier led the National to eclectic pinnacles of dramatic art. But in a decade's time, ill health and some ill-conceived productions brought about Olivier's resignation. His successor was no surprise. Between 1960 and 1968, Peter Hall had revolutionized the playing of Shakespeare, created the Royal Shakespeare Company and made it a national theater of high-styled stature. The bristly-bearded Hall-part dynamo, part diplomat, and possessed of a driving will-is peculiarly fitted to meet the challenge that lies ahead in forging...
...E.S.T.) by Jack Lemmon, starring in a remake of John Osborne's The Entertainer. Archie Rice, that talentless, foul-spirited denizen of show biz's low depths, is, of course, the creation and sole property of Laurence Olivier-perhaps the greatest performance in a nonclassic role by the man who is our age's prince of players. There is no hope of duplicating what he did in that part. So it is hard to know what possessed Lemmon to put himself in a position where comparisons are bound to be inevitable and unfavorable...
...beloved former star hauled out of retirement to save his son's awful act), not because he has any ambition left, but because the stage, however tacky it is, is the only arena in which he dares hope for survival. But the best Lemmon can manage in the role is a certain technical proficiency...
...found embarrassing, of nights when he must have felt he was going to boil in his own flop sweat. It was those memories-a performer's kinship acknowledged-that informed Olivier's work and, finally, humanized and redeemed his Archie. The recognition of self in the role of Archie and the willingness to admit it are beyond Lemmon. He is distant, predictable and therefore boring...