Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Laurence Olivier/archive3

Analysis section

Sketch:

• Physical - Coriolanus drop by ankles

• "Allied to this originality was a sense of daring. It showed itself, physically, in such feats as his famous headlong deathfall off a 12-foot-high platform in Coriolanus (Olivier was 52 at the time)."
  • Also Mr Puff in The Critic - whizzing up to the flies on a wire - and getting injured, not for the first or last time.

• Agate on "watch mechanism" - seeing LO's technique showing itself
• Heavy make up - Belch etc

• Fogerty: "You have a weakness ... here"

• Working from outside in - building appearance and then finding character to inhabit it

• "The delight in acting often comes during the rehearsal where the part is discovered," he told Bob Thomas of the Associated Press in 1971. "Later, the audience adds the spark but the work has already been done, the foundation laid." (The Boston Globe, 1989)

• Obverse of Gielgud - LO's own "elements" analysis and Agate's "neck up" comment
• Tricks - e.g. ermine trapped tongues for Oedipus screams

Just my interim thoughts while away from my shelves. Tim riley talk 21:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Olivier:

• "what is acting but lying, and what is good acting but convincing lying?"

References