"She had a world-weary rue that wasn't of Sweden, or that century"
Although I wasn't altogether in love with her performance, as I wrote elsewhere in this thread, I'm not sure that her world-weary rue wasn't of Sweden or of the early years of the last century. I think it probably wasn't altogether, but I'm not sure that it was much more or less than that of Hermione Gingold, Margaret Hamilton, Angela Baddeley, Barbara Baxley, Lila Kedrova, Glynis Johns, Regina Resnik, Siân Phillips, Claire Bloom, Zoe Caldwell or Angela Lansbury. I wasn't in Sweden at that time. Actually, I don't think that world-weary rue is exactly what the role calls for.
I don't believe that people in times past and outside America behaved all that much differently than we do. Probably slightly differently to some degree, but the differences were not always what we might think they were. Obviously, we either buy what we see in performances or we don't, but except for that "Whoo!" with her arm up in the air, I don't recall thinking that her behavior was not believable for the time and place. |
