SHAKESPEAREAN ACTING

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27302, 19 March 1954, Page 13

SHAKESPEAREAN ACTING

STRATFORD ON AVON SEASON OPENS COMMENT ON WORK OF YOUNGER PLAYERS (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, March 18. Dramatic critics who attended the first night of “Othello” by the Strat-ford-on-Avon company with younger members, many of whom toured New Zealand, playing most of the principal roles are somewhat guarded in their comments, and suggest that a better summing up will be possible later in the season. The “Daily Telegraph” says the production was just good enough to miss real quality. “As the Moor, Anthony Quayle gave a performance which set the key for the whole affair. Again and again he reminded the audience in his air of authority, or the timbre of his voice, of Godfrey Tearle—and what better pattern could he have, since Tearle in 1923 was the finest Othello we have seen? “Yet in exactly those qualties which made Tearle great, Quayle was deficient. Tearle’s delivery of Shakespeare’s music often made one’s eyes tingle and one’s throat contract. Not once did I find myself moved in those ways by Quayle. “Barbara Jefford as Desdemona is also on the very verge of being good, but misses somehow the pathetic appeal which is the essence of this character.”

“The Times” says that the experiment of giving leading roles to younger members “must be given a fair chance to justify itself. All that can be said at the moment is that it has not made a propitious begining. “Qualye’s Othello is a practised if not particularly inspired, piece of playing. Tt is a performance of solid merit and he sets the company an example. "Largely Wasted” “This example was largely wasted. Raymond Westwell’s lago is lamentably below the Stratford standard. Barbara Jefford’s Desdemona speaks with the voice of some minor character in a piece of modern realism. Her pleading is altogether without tragic dignity.” “The Times” praises the settings, but adds: “We seem to be back, indeed, to the bad old days when the settings came in for all the praise and acting was dealt with as leniently as possible.” The “Daily Express” says: “These youngsters, stuck all over with false whiskers, have still to learn how to speak poetry, Quayle did not move me, but his lion’s growl voice gave Othello a dark and primitive glamour. “The youngsters at Stratford excite me theoretically. I hope they excite me theatrically later on.”