Word: wilber
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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...
...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...
Only a couple of performances rise above the standard set by the leads. Shirley Wilber's embodiment of Juliet's Nurse seems on another plane from everything else in this production: smooth and completely in control of every nuance of Shakespeare's verse. Her discovery of Juliet's feigned death is the only moment of convincing grief in the whole show...
...being a good salesman. I don't steal from the poor." He even won some high praise. Ethel Kennedy wrote to say that she had been "moved" by his portrait of J.F.K. and was "looking forward" to his painting of her husband. Former Army Secretary Wilber M. Brucker called his own portrait "a tribute to both your artistic skill and powers of observation...