Laurelei, you write that Austin is "supposed to be a monster of egotism and cruelty," and that Strathairn plays it as "almost unaware of his own harshness, lost in a miasma of disappointment and mourning for his wife." You go on to say that Catherine's line "I can be cruel, I have been taught by masters" is difficult to reconcile with Strathairn's relatively benign interpretation.
I disagree. Strathairn's Austin was aware of his harshness because his mission was to be cruel to be kind. The text supports this. He speaks of being forced to be cruel to do what he must to protect his daughter. In his mind, of course, he is doing just that. Strathairn's is not your usual Austin in that he is not as pompous and bombastically arch as, say, Ralph Richardson was in Wyler's great film. Perhaps the "supposed to be" you posit is based merely on what we have seen before in the telling of this story. Kaufman and company saw it quite differently. For me, this is what makes this production refreshingly different and equally interesting to its progenitors.
That we, the audience, can be more understanding of Strathairn's Dr. Sloper should in no way prevent us from empathizing with Catherine's hurt and her sense of Austin and Morris as having been masterfully cruel. That is how she experiences it, quite understandably. But it doesn't mean that Austin in his heart of hearts is, intrinsically, a monster of egotism and cruelty. Nor does it mean that he isn't - that is what makes different directors' and actors' different looks at this story fascinating.
This is a rich interpretation of the story specifically because the moral fabric of the characters is more recognizably human and less clearly polarized on the spectrum of spiritual goodness. The play is being told less melodramatically than usual.
Now the question that is interesting is whether, judged on these terms, this production works or it doesn't. For me, it worked splendidly. For others it clearly did not.
But what is this "supposed to" barometer of who these people are? Why can't we leave aside - or at least be aware of - the way we have been conditioned by prior interpretations of this play to view these people and instead watch what is being presented to us in this new take on the play and judge it on its own terms? Doing so should not be confused with resisting comparisons with earlier interpretations. To the contrary, it would instead be opening ourselves up to alternative tellings and delving deeper into what works and what does not.
By comparing and contrasting without presuming that what came before is definitive.
Updated On: 11/5/12 at 08:38 PM
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