John Shea (7/82 The Animal Kingdom)
Excerpt from New York Times 7/23/82: John Shea
STAGE: PHILIP BARRY COMEDY AT BERKSHIRE FESTIVAL
By FRANK RICH, Special to the New York Times Published: July 23, 1982
STOCKBRIDGE, Mass., July 22- If you're going to revive a Philip Barry comedy these days, you can't do much better than to cast John Shea, Sigourney Weaver and Anne Twomey in the leads. These three actors have just what Barry required of his upper-crust heros and heroines: breeding, youth, wit and an ineffable ability to look smashing in town and country evening clothes. It doesn't hurt, either, that these three stars, like the Katharine Hepburns, Joseph Cottens and Cary Grants of Barry's day, are on the tall side. Maybe the rich aren't really all that much different from you and me, but it's still romantic to believe that they are taller. So give the Berkshire Theater Festival credit for forging a perfect match of performers and playwright in its revival of Barry's ''The Animal Kingdom,'' which opened Wednesday night. And celebrate, too, the fact that Mr. Shea, Miss Weaver and Miss Twomey are not only in the right roles, but are also, for the most part, in top form.
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It tells of a quintessential Barry hero, a young book publisher named Tom Collier (Mr. Shea), who is torn between the values of his stuffy patrician upbringing and an idealistic desire to do something worthwhile with both his professional and personal life. As in other Barry works, the protagonist's internal conflict is personified by the two paramours who vie for his heart. Tom settles down to marry the ''right'' woman, the high-born Cecelia Henry (Miss Weaver), only to find that he longs for the free-spirited painter (Miss Twomey) that he loved and left in his post-Harvard salad days.
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Mr. Shea's big, glassy eyes burn with the intensity of someone who really is at a life-or-death crossroads, and Barry gives him some passionate, even angry lines that recall Tracy Lord's late awakening in ''The Philadelphia Story.''
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Mr. Wulp is to be congratulated nonetheless on his thoughtful work with his leads. If Mr. Shea slightly overdoes his boyish winsomeness at the start, he is still an uncommonly appealing specimen of earnest Wasp manhood - and his presence here, immediately following his New York run in A.R. Gurney Jr.'s ''The Dining Room,'' reminds us again of the affinity between Mr. Gurney and Barry.
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When Miss Weaver and Mr. Shea embrace, they're not merely practicing love for the sake of social form - their kisses are hot stuff.
© New York Times
Excerpt from People 8/23/82: John Shea
John Travolta, Wayne Rogers and Other Actors Invest Their Talents in Summer Stock
August 23, 1982 Vol. 18 No. 8
Among those drawing audiences to the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Mass. this summer is Sigourney Weaver, 32, the film actress (Alien, Eyewitness), now working in her second year of summer stock. Cast with Missing star John Shea (left) and Anne Twomey in Philip Barry's 1932 comedy of manners The Animal Kingdom, Weaver has collected the standard Actors Equity minimum of $311.75 per week but insists that she's "amazed we get paid at all. We learn so much, and it is fun."
© People