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| Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud. |
HOME
[Comedy-Drama/British/Hospital/Mental Illness/Old Age] A: David Storey; D:
Lindsay Anderson; S/C: Joyce Herbert; L: Jules Fisher; M: Alan Price; P:
Alexander H. Cohen; T: Morosco Theatre; 11/17/70-2/20/71 (110)
The critics disagreed about Home’s ultimate literary value, but no one disputed its ability to
provide a topnotch English acting company with a foundation on which to erect
an ensemble performance of brilliant artistry. Set in a mental institution, Home’s locale only slowly becomes
apparent as the small cast chats about the present and past. There
are two couples, one male, one female, and a powerful fellow named Alfred
(Graham Weston), who’s had a lobotomy. This was, after all, the era of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
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| John Gielgud, Mona Washbourne. |
Sirs John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, longtime friends and
artistic rivals as leaders of the British theatre’s thespian aristocracy,
played to perfection the roles of two elegant, elderly gents, Harry and Jack,
respectively. Their poignant revelations about their past lives and loves and
losses are expressed in highly impressionistic dialogue. This, crammed
with suggestive ellipses, was likened by the critics to Chekhov, Pinter, and
Beckett.
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| Jessica Tandy, Ralph Richardson, Mona Washbourne, John Gielgud. |
Walter Kerr, however, thought “The calculated stasis seems .
. . both weary and artful. . . . Beckett without the poetry, . . . Pinter with
the tension.” The essentially actionless style impressed Harold Clurman, who
described it as “pointilistic. . . . Minute dots of broken utterances which
compose a curiously melancholy whole.” And Brendan Gill was moved by the
unsentimental depiction of man’s inevitable progress toward death and his
inability to make contact with others along the way.
Gielgud and Richardson played exquisitely on the subtle
hints provided by their roles. John J. O’Connor noted that “Gielgud can turn
the removal of a speck of lint from his friend’s sleeve into an unforgettable
moment.” Clive Barnes thought the star has “a look of pained pleasure, his eyes
sometimes crinkled with tears, or his body stiffly erect, with perfect manners
covering up depths of loss, oceans of grief.” Martin Gottfried was less kind,
however: “John Gielgud is a less complete actor [than Richardson] and refuses
to alter his thin-necked, nasal passage oratory for any role, so literal, he
insists on finding his own sense in the lines, missing what Richardson has
realized—the sense of the lines in the play’s world.” Still, he had to admit
that Gielgud was “nevertheless moving.” He wrote of Richardson that he “is
extraordinary, creating a powerfully tragic Jack through expression, gesture,
stance, voice production and (finally) art.”
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| Ralph Richardson, Graham Weston, Jessica Tandy, John Gielgud, Mona Washbourne. |
Together with the sterling performances of veteran actresses
Dandy Nichols (succeeded by a deglamorized Jessica Tandy) and Mona Washbourne
as other aging residents of the institution, the production offered what John
Simon called a “string quintet [of] marvelous tone clusters, cagey silences,
shrewd rubatoes, and shimmering polytonality. Home does not really work as a play, but as a concert it is close
to sublime.”
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| Mona Washbourne, Dandy Nichols. |
For all that, Home was
recognized by the Drama Critics Circle as Best Play, and snared a Tony
nomination for the same thing. Gielgud was given the Drama Desk Award for
Outstanding Performance and also received a Tony nomination. Richardson was
also handed a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination, while also being selected
by a Variety poll as Male Lead,
Straight Play. Washbourne was Tony nominee, for Supporting Actress, Play, while
also leading Variety’s poll for
Actress, Supporting Role. Finally, Lindsay Anderson landed a Tony nomination
for his direction.
