PARTISAN REVIEW
487
half-crazed ambiguity. That he was finally defeated was due both to
Robert Shaw's failure as author to clarify his intentions, and
to
Harold
Pinter's insistence as director on emphasizing the script's words rather
than actions, thereby making the play more static and explicit than
necessary; Pinter apparently failed to realize that with a playwright
less verbally gifted than he, the concentration on words would prove a
disservice....
Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
boasted a number of fine
performances. Al Pacino as the border-line psychotic and Lauren Jones
as the tough-tender girl, won well-deserved attention for their per–
formances. On the other hand, Hal Holbrook's surface acting fared far
better with the critics than it should have, while three actors in smaller
roles, Roger Robinson, Lazaro Perez and Bruce Scott, received less
notice than their talents deserved (the play, incidentally, had some
touching, funny moments, though it was badly marred by predictability
and some awkward, expository writing) .... A few other outstanding
performances went largely unrecognized: Sam Schacht played the small
part of a Nazi officer with sustained intensity in George Tabori's talky,
unfocused
The Cannibals.
...
Erica Yohn's subtle, varied portrait of
the mother in Boris Vian's
The Empire! Builders,
like most good per–
formances in badly received plays, went unnoticed.... Brian Bedford
fared better with the critics because they are always nervously well–
disposed toward "classics" and Bedford appeared in two
this
season:
The Cocktail Party
and
The Misanthrope.
But the subtlety of his talents
didn't get sufficient recognition. Bedford, who is English, has the kind
of economy of gesture and precise timing not often seen in American
actors; he can do more with the shading of his voice or the slight move–
ment of his eyes than most actors can when pulling out all the stops.. ..
Gordon Davidson's fine production of Heinar Kipphardt's relentlessly
rational
In the Matter
of
J.
Robert Oppenheimer
boasted not one, but
a half dozen of that rarest Broadway phenomenon: a good character
performance by a middle-aged male. Eduard Franz, Ralph Bell, Stefan
Schnable, Tony van Bridge and Stephen Elliott all turned in splendidly
focused, intelligent performances, while Herbert Berghof, who is all too
rarely seen, turned in, as always, a brilliantly detailed one. . . . Some
performances this season I thought overpraised: Alex McCowen, in
Hadrian VII
did show enough mechanical brilliance to warrant some
of the attention lavished on him, but like the play itself, McCowen's
performance had no core, mistaking theatrical effects for theatrical
characterization, cheap titillation for substantive detail. ... I had mixed
feelings, too, about Dustin Hoffman in
Jimmy Shine.
An actor of
undoubted charm and skill, he sometimes works his assets so hard that
