![]() How many ears do you have left?”), or the root of languages which really are most striking in their similarities, in that their similarities are all the same. He insist on teaching the difference between addition and subtraction using bizarre and inane examples (“Now, I nibble away at one of your ears, I nibble away. Overly confident in his own powers as an eligible bachelor, a teacher, and a compassionate explainer of ideas, the Professor has no view that perhaps he is taking things too far – and perhaps the bow tie and leather jacket is not the most attractive choice.Īs O’Grady increasingly pontificates: on maths, on entomology and languages, the sheer volume of the monosided conversation – punctuated only by the insistent cries of his student “I have tooth ache” – is staggering. O’Grady’s Professor gives off the air of a very spoiled and very rich little boy – if undoubtedly talented, this does not extend further than the pages of a text book, and certainly doesn’t extend as far as common sense. One gets the idea that this man never had any friends at school and perhaps that is why he is so bright – if you whittle the hours away in the library, there is no one to notice you don’t have any friends. Written as an elderly man, a closer approximation to how we perceive a professor to look, the casting of O’Grady creates the image of a young man who is clearly very bright, but always molly-coddled, creating a socially isolated man who has ideas above his worth. When he disparagingly glares at his maid (Chrissie Page) and announces “I’m older than 21!” you get the idea that he in fact just turned 22 and is relishing in the fact that he is a big boy now. But it is the casting and direction of a young Professor– not only cast young, but played at the actors age, which gives this production its added level of intrigue. With costuming (Ben Galbraith) setting the production in the 50s, Nescha Jelk’s production of The Lesson is in many ways a traditional reading of the text. ![]()
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