Donald Wolfit's Shakespeare on Broadway 1947: The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
The British actor/manager Donald Wolfit brought his repertoire to 1700-seat New Century Theatre on 7th Avenue and West 58th Street for three-week season from 18 February to 6 March 1947. Following successful Canadian tour, his producer Hall Shelton hoped reaction might similar on Broadway. Both he and Wolfit were sadly disappointed as New York reviewers unanimously condemned productions for lack of quality. The season commenced with King Lear, Wolfit's biggest box-office draw in his recent London season at Winter Garden Theatre. Brooks Atkinson of New York Times felt Wolfit was wholly lacking in nobility of character might give this tragedy stature, in revival was but tussle (The New Play). (1) George Jean Nathan described company as grossly incompetent, while Ernst Stem's sets looked as if they had been fished of suburban warehouse (Nathan). John Beaufort of Christian Science Monitor asked: If classics are going to done in such way, would it perhaps better not to do them at all? (Beaufort). As You Like It, staple of Wolfit's repertoire over previous decade, fared little better: Robert Garland of New York Journal-American believed cast could not put over Shakespeare's speeches in way that you--or I--could admire or understand it.... It was fair neither to them or Shakespeare (Garland). William Hawkins of World-Telegram described revival as a jabbering race. You are likely to wish not so much they would cut play, as cut it out (Hawkins). The Merchant of Venice, pillar of Wolfit's repertoire, received slightly more favourable notices, but managed to upset Lee Shubert, controller of more than half of all Broadway theatres, on anti-Semitic grounds. Edgar Price of Brooklyn Citizen deemed Wolfit's staging especially insensitive at time when the Brotherhood of Man is being preached from one end of country to another (Donald Wolfit and his Company). The fourth and last revival in five-play season (the final being Ben Jonson's Volpone) was Hamlet, which Wolfit had first essayed at Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, as long ago as 1936. The anonymous Variety reviewer considered possessed none of litheness, nor few of accepted emotions of prince of Denmark, while his rendering of To or not to be soliloquy was no better than of a provincial stock actor (Hamlet). Rowland Field (Newark Evening News) claimed cast had struck a new low for their New York engagement with their crude treatment of majestic work (Field). Faced with such reviews, it came as no surprise to find Wolfit writing in his account-book in New York: Anti-British feeling [was] high ... Bevin attacked Truman. Anger from Jews over M. of Venice and threats to close us up (qtd. in Harwood 202). (2) His productions were certainly old-fashioned, constructed around leading actor's personality with little attention paid to supporting cast, scenery or costumes. By late Forties British reviewers regularly condemned his shoddy standards--even if he was undertaking valuable cultural by playing in provincial cities, he could at least bear in mind audiences expected more in return for price of admission. For example, humourist Stephen Potter felt Wolfit deliberately underproduces and undercasts rest of his company in order to stand by contrast ... [yet] most in need of production, naturally, is Mr. Wolfit himself. Just because his status is of leading actor, his intemperance needs stricter hand (Potter). Writing in News Chronicle Alan Dent disliked stage-business introduced into Wolfit's productions, to give supporting cast something to do: We do not applaud [it] (Dent). Despite Wolfit's allegations, New York reviewers were not by nature anti-British--as this article will explain, their reactions not only depended on lack of quality of Wolfit's repertoire, but were significantly determined by social and theatrical context in which he performed. …
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Prédiction machine sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Le volet Gemma est une étiquette directe du modèle pour chaque travail de la base, lue sur la notice réduite au titre. Le volet Codex est un classifieur appris des 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et calibré sur les taux pondérés de l'échantillon; les champs sans appui suffisant ne portent aucun appel Codex. Le mode candidate est l'union des deux volets; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont pas des étiquettes humaines.
Scores du classifieur distillé par catégorie (deux têtes)
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,001 | 0,002 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,014 | 0,007 |
| Communication savante | 0,007 | 0,004 |
| Science ouverte | 0,001 | 0,003 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,002 | 0,004 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,030 | 0,008 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule source (Gemma direct ou Codex distillé), pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».