Word: hal
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Those two plays might better be called Fathers and Sons. While he is battling the Percys, Henry is also fighting for the loyalty and affection of his son and heir, Prince Hal. Hal, that "nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales," as Hotspur derisively calls him, has given himself up to bad living and bad companions, led by the fat and riotous Falstaff; his revolt against duty is a more serious threat to Henry's kingdom than Hotspur and all his kin. The distraught Henry wishes that Hotspur had been his son and it could be proved that "some night...
...between Henry and Falstaff, or order and disorder, for the allegiance of Hal is the dominating theme of the first two Henrys. But what neither man knows is that the outcome has been foreordained: Hal, the consummate politician, is only pretending to be bad so that when it is time to be good he will seem all the better. "Yet will I imitate the sun," he says, "who may be more wonder'd at, by breaking through the foul and ugly mists of vapors that did seem to strangle him." Fortunately Shakespeare gives Hal a heart as well...
...Hal's transformation from brat to warrior is a shaky bridge for any actor to walk. Audiences have always found it hard to sympathize with his duplicity in leading on a lovable rogue like Falstaff, and the actor who plays him must make his deviousness seem right as well as log ical. To preserve his life and his position he must be more clever than other men: he is the son of a regicide and knows that the throne he will inherit has been made slippery by blood. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," cries his father...
...entertainer (she plays 19 instruments and sings), then learned to fly so she could barnstorm with her Vegas act. Claudia started putting in time as a flight instructor, and during one stint Cathy turned up as a student. That led to Claudia's marrying Cathy's father, Hal Jones. Now Claudia co-pilots Boeing 727s for Continental Airlines, while Cathy, though a licensed pilot, works as a flight engineer with Western Airlines. Last year's proposed merger between the two airlines might have brought the two women closer together; as it is, the Joneses have trouble keeping...
...project is going badly. "I was amazed at the discretion with which he handled the part," says Co-Star Melvyn Douglas. "Never was there a suggestion of having overblown any sense of it." Adds Richard Dysart, who played a doctor: "The texture of that man's work! He gave Hal Ashby two or three different characters?not that varied, but different. I began to see that there was a through line for each, that they were consistent." Ashby thus had not just alternate scene readings, but at least two complete, distinctly shaded characterizations...