Viewing page 10 of 47
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
deeply and extends a hand to be kissed, transporting the startled guest to a time when knighthood was in flower. Currently, her dressing room is at the Belasco where she rules the roost in a gossamer confection from another time - Christopher Fry's 1950 adaptation of Jean Anouillh's 1947 Ring Round the Moon. As the haughty Madame Desmermortes, she putters about the hothouse of her French chateau in a wheelchair in that Titanic spring of 1912, referencing the amours of her twin nephews (Toby Stephens), littering her path with arch witticisms. [[pull quote]] "I adore this play. It's everything that I think the theatre can and should and might be. It's beautiful. It's romantic. It's unsentimental." [[/pull quote]] "I adore this play," she trills. "It's everything that I think the theatre can and should and might be. It's beautiful. It's romantic. It's unsentimental. It provides every single actor in the company with a beautiful part to play." (And there's quite a starry assortment to be serviced here: Candy Buckley, Richard Clarke, Frances Conroy, Gretchen Egolf, Philip Hoffman, Simon Jones, Haviland Morris, John Newton, Derek Smith, Toby Stephens, Joyce Van Patten and Fritz Weaver.) Initially, Seldes was contracted to be the Madame of the matinees, leaving the night work to the great Irene Worth, but when Worth was sidelined by a mild stroke, Seldes stepped in, opened (to raves) in the role and will continue in it till Worth is well enough to return. She got the S.O.S., after midnight, in London where she was finishing up filming The Haunting [of Hill House]. "Do you know how you can imagine an entire event while someone is just pausing for breath? My first thought was, 'She has fallen so in love with the part that she doesn't want to give up the matinees. And I must understand that.' Then they told me she had fallen ill and I was needed back at rehearsals as soon as possible." She has given so much to the theatre it's good to see the relationship is reciprocal - to see theatre giving back to her when she needs it. Work is her way of dealing with widowhood. Two weeks before she took on the role full time, the love of her life for the last 15 years - husband Garson Kanin, the legendary writer/director - died in her arms at their apartment. She responded by doing what came naturally to her: She went to rehearsal. "It was hard, but it would have been harder to sit there without him. Then, the next day would have been even harder. It was better just to do it, to go. I didn't want what had happened to me to change anything that happened in rehearsal. By getting there and just being there was good for me. Theatre is saving me. It's pulling me out of what could be tremendous loneliness. It's exactly what Garson wanted for me. He knew I was going to be with the play anyway. Now to open in it, to be a part of this company in this way is amazing. It's a real family." Seldes bacame a charter member of this family a half-century ago last year, [[image: color photo of a scene from Ring Round the Moon]] [[caption]] Gretchen Egolf and Toby Stephens in a scene from Ring Round the Moon [[/caption]] [[credit]] JOAN MARCUS [[/credit] 18 WWW.PLAYBILL.COM PURE THEATRE ONLINE [[end page]] [[start page]] [[advertisement]] [[image: color photo of older couple dancing]] VIAGRA (sildenafil citrate) tablets Let the dance begin. TM HC207A99 © 1999, Pfizer Inc [[Pfizer logo]] U.S. Pharmaceuticals [[/advertisement]]
