1. Laurette Taylor as Amanda Wingfield in Glass Menagerie<\/i> – the production in Chicago. BEFORE it came to New York. <\/p>\n
2. Marlon Brando in the premiere of Streetcar Named Desire<\/i> on Broadway. <\/p>\n
3. Eleanora Duse doing anything.<\/p>\n
4. One of Meyerhold’s legendary productions in Russia<\/p>\n
5. Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth. She did that role in 1785, but its reputation among theatrefolk lives on. It is said that her interpretation of that role is, to this day, “unequaled”. A fellow actor in the production with her said that in preparation for her “out damn’d spot” scene, she would go out behind the theatre and chop wood. To get herself into the proper state of mind. This is long before “method”, or anything like that. It was her instinct, her genius, that led her to that choice. She must have been extraordinary. The performance was seen as so authoritative that a century later Ellen Terry was intimidated by approaching the role.<\/p>\n
6. Any of the plays of the ancient Greeks – comedy or tragedy – it doesn’t matter. I so would love to see how those plays were really done, way back when in antiquity.<\/p>\n
7. Peter Brook’s legendary Midsummer Night’s Dream<\/i>, produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1970. Actors on trapezes, surrounded by white walls. People who saw it still talk about it and it was 30 years ago. <\/p>\n
8. I would have loved to be in the audience to see Clifford Odets’ masterful piece of Communist agitprop: Waiting for Lefty<\/i>. It wasn’t even in a real theatre, not the first production of it anyway. It was in a community center way downtown. The audience not only erupted into a frenzy at the end when it is revealed “Lefty” was killed, the audience started rioting immediately – and Elia Kazan (who played the lead role of Agate) stood down center and started shouting the last lines: “STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!” The audience picked up the call, started shouting “STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE …”, stamping their feet, and then they literally stormed the stage to embrace the actors … there was no fourth wall. The Group Theatre, an organization completely of its time, had broken down the barrier between actor and audience. <\/p>\n
9. I would have loved to be at the Actors Studio on the day that Marilyn Monroe did a scene from Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie<\/i>. The place was apparently packed with onlookers, hanging off the balcony, peering down. I’ve been to the Actors Studio many times. It’s in an old church on 44th Street. There’s a balcony, a working-space (not really a stage) with an exposed brick back wall. Actors go to the Actors Studio like a class. You work on scenes for the moderator of the week (moderators have been Harvey Keitel, Ellen Burstyn, Lee Grant, Estelle Parsons, Arthur Penn etc.). And Marilyn, trembling like a leaf, signed up to do a scene. She was a massive movie star at the time, but she wanted to work on her craft and be a serious actress. Apparently, her work was tremendous that day. You could have heard a pin drop in that space. I know this not only from Shelley Winters’ biography, but also from one of my teachers who was there that day. Such a risk for her to take – and I would have loved to have seen it.<\/p>\n
10. I would love to have been in the audience during the premiere of John Synge’s Playboy of the Western World<\/i>, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Just to witness the riots. To feel the chaos building. To see Yeats take the stage and try to make a speech, calming everyone down … only to be heckled by the audience. To see Yeats be heckled!! To see the actors in the play try to go on, even though the noise in the audience was deafening. What an experience!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. Laurette Taylor as Amanda Wingfield in Glass Menagerie – the production in Chicago. BEFORE it came to New York. 2. Marlon Brando in the premiere of Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. 3. Eleanora Duse doing anything. 4. One of … Continue reading