Word: wilber
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...troubles but all united in the unshakable belief that they hold the key to theatrical success in their genes. Hitting the right notes of arrogance and aristocratic off-handedness must be a trial. and not surprisingly only one of the Cavendishes at the Loeb finds the perfect balance. Shirley Wilber animates Fanny Cavendish, the grand dame of both stage and family, with accomplished ease: she seems as comfortable acting the role on stage as her comfortable acting the role on stage as her character does adding bits of drama to living room scenes. Wilber presides over both her household...
Fanny's daughter Julie inherits her mantle in the play, and Katharine Kean in her role offers plentiful urbanity and ease on stage. Her dramatic posturing is less subtle than Wilber's, and more self-conscious, but she maintains the illusion of the unrivalled actress in her prime in all but the most taxing moments. In the grand renunciation scene, when she announces she will leave the stage--forever, of course--the poised aristocrat turns into a ranting hausfrau, flailing and directing her harangue at the audience. The dislocation is brief but unsettling...
...script is strong: situational comedy. The first act drags a bit, but both second and third build to those frenzied, crowded scenes into which Kaufman is always tossing one more character. Both Cantor and Sam Samuels as Wolfe, the family's agent, have a knack for comic timing, and Wilber drops off-hand insults like time-bombs. Jeffrey Horwitz and Mario Aieta, as the men in the actress's lives who are forever barred from understanding their calling, receive no help from the script, and achieve correspondingly little success...
...LESS PASSIVE director might have chosen to make more of The Royal Family; in this production, nothing transcends simple comedy except Fanny's Act II monologue--a magical evocation of the scene backstage before curtain time, which Wilber uses to cast a spell over the house. In this case, passivity unintentionally pays off--the Loeb Royal Family doesn't pin any more significance on the slightly dated script than it can support. Three hours of good comedy remain, without any mirror tricks but without too much pretense, as well...
...Walter C. Hughes's Romeo has good looks but no ear for the verse in the play, so he sobs a lot. Shannon Gaughan's Juliet is only slightly better; she varies the noises emanating from the stage by introducing several whines. They do this production in Shirley Wilber as Juliet's nurse seems to be the only performer with some sense of how to present this play. Romeo and Juliet argues for the power of words to create something out of nothing, but these performers don't pay their lines enough attention to give Shakespeare's words a chance...