In his pre-movie star days, Clift was a serious and dedicated stage actor, and an early member of the Actors Studio. He appeared Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre, as Constantin in a production of THE SEAGULL, directed by Norris Houghton, the brilliant and charming man who was the artistic brain behind the Phoenix. The costumes were by Alvin Colt, the lighting by Klaus Holm, and Clift's onstage colleagues included Judith Evelyn (Arkadina), Maureen Stapleton (Masha), George Voskovec (Dorn), Will Geer (Shamrayev), June Walker (Paulina), Sam Jaffe (Sorin), and Kevin McCarthy (Trigorin). His Nina was Mira Rostova, his acting coach, on whom he was notoriously emotionally dependent at the time, and whose performance was not well received, and was viewed by some as the production's main flaw.
Clift's other Broadway credits, btw, include Lillian Hellman's THE SEARCHING WIND and an early Tennessee Williams work, YOU TOUCHED ME!, an adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence story co-written by Williams's frenemy Donald Windham. |
