An American Stage : Sex and IQ

It was with sadness and more than a bit of anger that I read Dan Sullivan’s Nov. 19 article on the supposed lack of classical American actors (“Into the Breach With Branagh”).

As an actor who has done most of her work in the classics and has been fortunate enough to work with world-class American actors and directors on the classics, I was appalled by Sullivan’s uniformed and chauvinistically anglophile observations.

First, to say that Taper executive Gordon Davidson’s decision to bring over a British company to do Shakespeare is “gutsy” is both offensive and ridiculous. What would be gutsy would be to use classical American actors who are well versed in the language plays, not just personality actors whose last brush with Shakespeare may have been their high school English class. (I recognize the need for box-office draw, but I believe the American public would respond as well to quality as to TV-Q.)

Come, Mr. Sullivan, in this day of foreign interests buying up our country right and left, don’t sell out our actors too!

HOPE ALEXANDER-WILLIS

Los Angeles