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The Theatreguide.London Review
In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic
forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted
by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others
by streaming new shows. And we take the opportunity to explore
other vintage productions preserved online. Until things return to
normal we review the experience of watching live theatre onscreen.
The
Petrified Forest
Producers'
Showcase 1955 and YouTube Autumn 2022
Robert
E.
Sherwood's 1934 drama is best known from the 1936 film, but this 1955
American television version offers some new and attractive colors as
well as some insights into the importance of casting.
A
roadside diner at the edge of an American desert is the meeting place
for an unlikely trio – a world-weary philosopher-poet, a gangster on the
lam and a waitress dreaming of a better life.
The
poet considers himself as dead as the desert fossils, but spots some
common qualities in the other two – ambition, a healthy selfishness and
the ability to hope – that suggest a vitality that he, and the
Depression-ridden country as a whole, have lost. He helps each of them
to escape, with his blessings.
You
can see the attraction to a Depression audience of Sherwood's grasping
at some basis for optimism. But even if his philosophising may seem
strained and less convincing ninety years later, there is no doubting
the play's power as a vehicle for three star performers.
The
original Broadway cast featured Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart and Peggy
Conklin, and the film Howard, Bogart (at Howard's insistence) and Bette
Davis.
Henry
Fonda and Lauren Bacall join Bogart for this 1955 live television
version, and the results are win, lose and draw.
For
all his brilliance as an actor, Leslie Howard found it hard to resist
putting an ironic distance between himself and his characters, as if he
enjoyed playing them but didn't really believe in them.
In
The Petrified Forest film this took the form of making the character
himself seem to be performing, playing the roles of pessimist and poet
for their effect on others. And so what he had to say lost some of its
sincerity and conviction.
Henry
Fonda
invests the man with a simple realism – he says what he means and means
what he says – and as a result the character and his relations with the
others all ring much truer than in the film, and we believe that he
believes what he is saying.
On
the
other hand, Lauren Bacall is simply miscast and misdirected as the girl.
YouTube
doesn't have the 1936 film, but it does have selected scenes, and it is
worth pausing to look at Bette Davis in one or two. Counter to her usual
image, Davis caught the wide-eyed and open-souled innocence of the girl
beautifully, so that we saw what Howard's character saw in her and
shared his celebration of it.
Bacall
is wrong from the very first second she appears, even before speaking a
word. She is too beautiful, too well-groomed, too sophisticated, and she
does nothing in her acting to modify that first impression.
This
woman has never seen a roadside diner, much less grown up in one – she
is a New York socialite who has wandered in from some other play.
And
Bogart? Bogart plays Bogart, which he does better than anyone else in
the world. He could play the role of the deeper-than-you-expect tough
guy in his sleep.
To
his credit Bogart does not sleepwalk through the play, and he has some
nice subtle moments. But the role does not stretch him an inch or offer
much opportunity for him to do much that's new.
The supporting cast range from adequate downward, Tad Mosel's adaptation consists largely of judicious editing, and Delbert Mann's direction - except for misguiding Bacall - is smooth and efficient.
Gerald
Berkowitz
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