London Critics Cool to Heston’s More

Charlton Heston has played Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons” once or twice in the States, and now he has done so in London.

Charles Osborne of the Daily Telegraph: “He gave an honest, intelligent performance which would have benefited from more detail, more chiaroscuro, in other words the qualities which a great actor, as distinct from a good one, would have brought to it. The play would have benefited from the same qualities.”

John Peter in the London Times: “His acting is as relentlessly workmanlike and as competent as Robert Bolt’s play. This is a granite performance and it also has the intellectual consistency of granite. You never get the feeling that this man has a subtle mind, far superior to everyone’s around him.”

Jack Tinker in the Daily Mail: “Where the role calls for greatness, he is merely large; where it demands introspection he is simply glazed over.”

Tinker took particular issue with Heston’s “terrible” wig. Osborne, on the other hand, defended Heston’s accent. “It was not over-obtrusive and compared favorably with most English actors’ attempts at American.”

What’s the longest-running play in American theater history? First it was “The Drunkard,” in Los Angeles. Then it was “Life With Father” on Broadway. Now it’s “Shear Madness” in Boston. It gave its 3,225th consecutive performance on Nov. 16, besting “Life With Father” by one.

“Shear Madness” is a comedy-murder-mystery set in a hair salon. Halfway through, the audience is brought in to play detective. Producers Bruce Jordan and Marilyn Abrams opened it in Boston on Jan. 29, 1980. Why Boston? “Because we didn’t know anything.”

“Shear Madness” also has had successful productions in Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis, Montreal, Barcelona and Chicago (where it’s been running for six years). But never New York. No use killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Never Los Angeles, either. If it comes, we promise not to review it.

IN QUOTES: John Kani, on playing Othello at the Market Theater, Johannesburg, the first black South African actor to play the role: “Sometimes I think, ‘Please, please, can’t we change it just for tonight? Can’t we have Iago saying, ‘I’m sorry. I made a mistake?’ ”