THE THEATER 1947: Alec Guiness Stars in Old Vic's RICHARD II

• Share

Alec's Way

Whenever Laurence Olivier and Sir Ralph Richardson, the two leading men of London's Old Vic, took time off to make a movie (and a few quid), the players felt deserted. There was nothing for it, the company decided, but to produce an outstanding young actor to fill in. So they did.

He was 33-year-old Alec Guinness, a balding skinnybones with the wide, dashed look of a boy who has just blown his lines in the Sunday-school pageant. In the last six months mild-voiced young Alec has provoked the Old Vic's stage into varied and resonant life. As the Fool in King Lear, Time & Tide found him near "perfection."

Last week, after his first postwar leading part (as Shakespeare's penn'orth king, Richard II), Alec had London's dour critics giddily tapping their umbrellas. The Daily Herald: "This is Shakespeare done in a way that gives luster to the English theater." The Daily Telegraph: "Admirable economy . . . not a touch nor a tone seems wrong." The consensus: Alec Guinness is the most versatile new actor to appear on the British stage since the war.