Difference between revisions of "Edmund Kean"
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Fitzsimons, Raymund Edmund Kean : fire from heaven / by Raymund Fitzsimons. London : Hamilton, c1976 | Fitzsimons, Raymund Edmund Kean : fire from heaven / by Raymund Fitzsimons. London : Hamilton, c1976 | ||
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| + | . ''Edmund Kean'' is a play about the mystery of talent and its sometimes flawed human embodiment. As staged by Alison Sutcliffe (Mr. Kingsley's wife), it presents a fascinating portrait of a man who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of fame, who yearned for esteem and scorned respectability, who kept a pet lion, who compared himself to Byron and Napoleon, and whose accomplishments could not survive his excesses. In the end, a broken actor, Kean personifies the mythic figure of Shakespeare's imagery - ''a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more. . . .'' All of his defiant mockery and bravado have been dissipated. Never a sympathetic figure, he becomes pitiable, or at least understandable. | ||
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| + | Source: Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987. | ||
| + | Return to [[ESAT Plays 1 E|E]] in Plays 1 Original SA Plays | ||
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| + | Return to [[ESAT Plays 2 E|E]] in Plays 2 Foreign Plays | ||
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| + | Return to [[South_African_Theatre/Plays]] | ||
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| + | Return to [[Main Page]] | ||
Revision as of 09:48, 6 July 2013
Fitzsimons, Raymund Edmund Kean : fire from heaven / by Raymund Fitzsimons. London : Hamilton, c1976
. Edmund Kean is a play about the mystery of talent and its sometimes flawed human embodiment. As staged by Alison Sutcliffe (Mr. Kingsley's wife), it presents a fascinating portrait of a man who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of fame, who yearned for esteem and scorned respectability, who kept a pet lion, who compared himself to Byron and Napoleon, and whose accomplishments could not survive his excesses. In the end, a broken actor, Kean personifies the mythic figure of Shakespeare's imagery - a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more. . . . All of his defiant mockery and bravado have been dissipated. Never a sympathetic figure, he becomes pitiable, or at least understandable.
Source: Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987. Return to E in Plays 1 Original SA Plays
Return to E in Plays 2 Foreign Plays
Return to South_African_Theatre/Plays
Return to Main Page
