Word: wirth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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BARNUM AND KNOX complement each others' strengths again as Conchubar and Cuchulain in On Baile's Strand, but this play uses the relationship of two lesser characters, the Blind Man and the Fool, to equal purpose in commenting on the progress of Cuchulain's life. Peter Wirth and Joel Davidson succeed only partially in filling these two roles with intelligent but unrealized interpretations. Director Donnally Miller emphasizes the mutual dependence of the two half-men well enough, but the scenes where they're alone, ideal for comic improvisation, drag more than they should...
...Reading their passages from two almost invisible black books, the narrators (Ann Fay and Kim Fadiman) appear to be gazing down on the village itself, as they involve their listeners by addressing them with the repeated invitation, "only you can see..." The other narrator, the blind Captain Cat (Peter Wirth), was, for Thomas, the natural bridge between the eyes and the ears of his radio listeners, but Wirth's grizzled dignity lends an especially sympathetic dimension to the part...