SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE TOO PRETTY.

SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE TOO PRETTY. I posted earlier on the fussy literalism of New York theater critics, noting especially John Simon’s running joke that only beautiful women could play characters who were supposed to be attractive. Hilton Als has an interesting twist on this literalism in his New Yorker review of the current production of A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN. O’Neill’s heroine is supposed to almost a freak at five foot eleven and 180 pounds. Als thinks Eve Best is a fine actress but unfortunately she is “slim-hipped and lovely” so that casting her “has sacrificed something that is essential to our understanding of [the heroine]. Als refers to “Best’s deficiencies” in comparing her to Colleen Dewhurst (who gave a wonderful performance in the play in 1973, although I had thought that it was her acting rather than her appearance which made her so wonderful). I disagree with the assumption that O’Neill’s heroine must be powerfully built in order to show that she could be capable of taking over her father’s farm if she chose. I have the impression that, perhaps by necessity, small men and women ran farms in the past, but my main disagreement is that I believe audiences can make imaginative leaps. Think of Shakespeare’s audiences, confronted with the boy playing Lady Macbeth.