Ingenious Adaptation
NE of the most interesting things about the 1YC broadcast of the World Theatre play, Euripides’ Alcestis was the ingenious way in which Ford Madox Ford in his adaptation solved (or perhaps bypassed) the problem of the Greek chorus by introducing a nobleman named Chorus to take the burden of the comment and by dividing other chorus material amcngst the village
women. For the rest this is a vigorous translation, neatly adapted to modern audiences; and played so as to bring out all the romantic, pathetic and comic elements. Grizelda Harvey gave a charming reading of the charming Alces-
tis, André Morell handled the dauntingly difficult part of Admetus admirably, and Valentine Dyall, exchanging his black cloak for an’ animal-skin, brought gusto to the role of the bighearted Hercules. The simple plot of the play, and the dramatic high spots, the quarrel between Admetus and his father and the unveiling of Alcestis, are so appealing as to make me feel that this production should captivate a much wider audience. Is this not a case where "flexibility" might be invoked to replay it from 1YA, say, on a Sunday afternoon? The introduction by Dorian Saker, hawever, struck me as being singularly unhelpful, and too elementary, if not naive, for the original 1YC audience. |
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19510601.2.19.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 622, 1 June 1951, Page 11
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216Ingenious Adaptation New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 622, 1 June 1951, Page 11
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