Word: magic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...those lavish reminders that the assembly line is not the fountain of inspiration, that known quantities gathered together do not necessarily produce the elusively unknown quantities of fine dramatic art or exciting entertainment. Wands are wielded by Katharine Hepburn, Alan Jay Lerner, Andre Previn and Cecil Beaton, but no magic ensues. No wish is fulfilled. No dream comes true...
...Special Magic...
...folk tales, the power that changes a frog to a prince is called magic. In life, it is known as nostalgia. Wrapped in it, a newspaper becomes an illuminated manuscript, a vulgar city is transformed into El Dorado. Ben Hecht, once one of the highest-paid scenarists in Hollywood, had a nostalgia factory for a brain; what went in as the apprenticeship of a yellow journalist emerged as gilded celebrations of innocence...
Word also doubles as the Player King and the gravedigger. Tying together the Ghost and the Player King is a superb stroke, since characters hint at magical other realities. One never really knows whether the Ghost really exists, or is rather imagined by some of the characters. "Reality" is likewise broken down in the device of staging a play within the play: The Murder of Gonzago, which is also the story of a king murdered by his wife and her lover. Since Word plays both the murdered king in The Murder of Gonzago and the dead king's ghost...
Coward was the first laureate of the beautiful brittle people. Amanda (Tammy Grimes) and Elyot (Brian Bedford) had been married (tempestuously), then divorced (bitterly), and meet again with new spouses on a terrace (naturally) in the South of France. The old magic still works potently, and they "elope" together-self-acclaimed wicked imps of sin and guilt. Their shunned and stunned mates (Suzanne Grossmann and David Glover) discover that they are truly meant for each other and not for Elyot and Amanda...