Those who were members of the VantageNet forum a couple of years ago will remember Ms. Sheila March, who was a frequent poster until about a year ago.  Many of us met Sheila in NYC at the festival in 2001; she was very helpful to me as a newcomer in NYC when I was planning one of my Manhattan excursions after the festival ended.  Many of us will also recall her beautiful professional art work that she shared on this forum after 9/11.

I recently heard from Sheila, and she asked me to say "hello" to everyone on the board.  She recalled how her participation on the forum began with the beginning of the 1897 storyline.

Unfortunately, she no longer has a computer or e-mail address, but she is looking into the possibility of using an Internet cafe or public library.

I certainly hope one of these options will work for her.  I know I've missed her incisive and insightful comments this past year!

Vlad

I've commented over the years on how natural a performer Joel Crothers is.  Partly his naturalness may be dictated by his regular-guy character, Joe Haskell.  But with some acting experience myself, I know it isn't as easy as it looks to appear natural, at ease, comfortable -- it can be easier to be stagey and overly dramatic (Betsy Durban's over-emoting, anyone? )

He and KLS are such comparable performers -- there is such an ease to their individual performances and the way they work with one another -- you don't even notice most of the time that they ARE acting (now compare that with Humbert Allen Astredo, who never appears natural or believable, IMO, at least not as Nicholas Blair ... though I do admit the dictates of the roles are quite different).

When Joe was panting and out of breath, lying on the sofa in the drawing room at Collinwood, he was BELIEVABLE.  Again, a useful comparison -- or contrast, I should say -- would be the Jeb Hawkes actor (sorry, I'm spacing out on the name) -- imagine him doing the same scene!  Yikes!!

The only times I didn't quite like Crothers was when we seemed to have been directed to be overly hysterical, as with some of his latter scenes in 1795.

I think his performances are sometimes overlooked in favor of the more theatrical (though superb) work of actors like Frid and Thayer David.

The Lyndhurst mansion was profiled in a 20-minute segment on "Mansions, Monuments, and Masterpieces" on A&E last Friday night.

The history was given, especially about its occupant the evil robber baron Gould.

Many beautiful shots both interior, exterior, the grounds, history of the Conservatory/greenhouse ...

It was fascinating.

The program was to re-aire about 4 a.m. but I forgot to set my VCR to tape it.

I just got back into town after a week away and noticed tonight's late-night TV schedule:  AMC is re-airing "An Evening of Edgar Allen Poe" (listed as "An Evening With Edgar Allen Poe"), a one-hour, one-man show with Vincent Price dramatizing several stories by Poe.

Airtime is listed as 5:20 a.m. tonight (i.e., early Tuesday morning), but if you set your VCR, allow for some variance in start/end times (say, 10 minutes or so, to be on the safe side).

A must for Poe fans and/or Price fans!

I'm a bit late with this, but since I had referred to this as upcoming a week or two ago, I feel I ought to follow up on my own comments.

What am I talking about? The newly risen Angelique's "resurrection" appearance to Victoria Winters in the locked room of the House by the Sea. The scene appears to parody one of Christ's resurrection appearances in the gospel accounts of the Bible.

Consider that in the scene prior to this, Angelique and Nicholas discuss the biblical Adam and Eve. Interesting to observe that these two servants of Darkness have no quibbles with the Bible story of Adam being the first man, etc., as is told in the book of Genesis. I think it's significant that this biblical context is present in this episode, because it lends some credence to my conclusions regarding the following scene between Angelique and Vicki.

As background, in the Bible, after the crucifixion, Jesus suddenly appears in a locked room to his disciples. They say he must be a ghost. He says he is not a ghost and instructs them to touch him: he is flesh and blood, as they are. (In one of his appearances, I'm not sure if this is the same one, the risen Lord holds out his hands for the disciples to touch.)

In the scene in question, Angelique enters Victoria's locked room. Vicki says it's impossible, that Angelique is dead: You must be a ghost!  Angelique says she is not a ghost, holds out her hands, and tells Vicki to touch her: she is flesh and blood, she says, like Vicki.

The action and dialogue (which is very close to what I've included above, though I don't have a word-for-word transcription) takes only a few seconds, but the parallels with the Bible scene seem unmistakable. I'm still not sure whether I think this was a conscious attempt to briefly mimic a well-known event of the Bible (which anyone who grew up attending a church would be familiar with) or if the scene emerged from the writer's unconscious mind  -  though I'd opt for the former.

If the scene was a conscious parody of the Bible scene, it's no wonder certain conservative Christian groups thought the show was evil. Though of course the likelihood that any of them saw this particular episode is low, unless they watched the show regularly.  

Should Christians be offended?

I don't think so. After all, Angelique and Nicholas represent the powers of evil here.  Further, for Angelique to parody something in the Bible would be in keeping with her earlier pretense of "getting religion"  -  she's down on her knees and ecstatically proclaims, "I think it must be religion!" duping the Rev. Trask back in Martinique in 1795 when he's grilling her on her religious background. (That scene seems to parody a Pentacostal-type religious experience.)

Religious mimicry seems part of Angelique's demonic repertoire.

Not sure when this episode aired since I was behind on my viewing (and unfortunately didn't get the VCR set for the days I was at the festival ... that chess scene mentioned elsewhere with Professor Stokes and Julia sounds really good -- I don't remember it from the previous viewing but I must have it on tape from then.)

Anyway, in Episode #546, Nicholas removes Angelique's powers, telling her "You are no longer a member of our coven," and saying that she is now only a woman "born in Martinique in 1774."  I didn't remember this from my previous viewing, but it is crucial biographical information about Angelique.  She was 21 in 1795.

I love these tidbits, but it just isn't reconcilable with what we learn in 1840, i.e. that Angelique was formerly Miranda du Val, who lived in 1692 (I think it was).  The sequence also makes clear that she did not die and was not later reincarnated as Angelique on Martinique!

I didn't see this topic come up in any of the other threads, though it's possible I could have missed it.  I'm also a bit behind in posting on this.

When the ghost of Trask (I prefer not to dignify him with his mail-order "Rev." title) attempted to exorcise Angelique, his dialogue indicated that he expected demons to be expelled from her and that a new, innocent unpossessed Angelique would be the result.  Obviously things didn't work out quite as he thought.  Angelique disappeared entirely.  Was this the "Lord's" doing, after all?  If so, what are the implications?

The fact that Angelique disappeared in agony seemed further evidence that she is not an ordinary mortal who is simply in league with dark forces.  Though we know from a later storyline that she began life as a mortal, somehow she was transformed into something more than human after the Judah Zachary episode.

But would the Lord really use the ghost of the evil Trask as his instrument?

Is it possible that what really happened was that the Devil snatched Angelique away from the religious torture she was undergoing, which appeared to be real?

Subsequent events would tend to support this latter interpretation  -  i.e., it was not the Lord's doing but the Devil's when Angelique disappeared.

Any thoughts?

I haven't been able to post my response to earlier comments until now since I haven't had computer access since last Thursday, and I only have a few minutes to write now.  I decided to make this a new topic since the discussion in the thread "Am I A Nerd?" had veered off course a bit.  (Though I suppose by now everyone has pretty much had their say.)

Some may never be convinced that bad acting ever occurred on DS.  I don't think I've ever deliberately, cynically tried to play "spot the bad actor," but sometimes you don't have to hunt for it  -  it jumps out at you.  Maybe my own acting training or my stint as a theatre reviewer have conditioned me to have a critical eye, but I don't think such a background is necessary to realize that there is overacting, hamminess, and occasional ineptness in the acting on the show.  I hasten to add, for those who don't know me, that I have praised the acting of the majority of the actors on the show consistently in detailed commentary (e.g., Nancy Barrett, Thayer David, Louis Edmonds, John Karlen).  It's in contrast to such good work that some of the bad performances stand out.

Yes, there are plenty of explanations for any bad acting that might have occurred   -   tight budgets, limited rehearsal time, a scarcity of actors in NYC who were trained for TV work, etc.  Although I agree that stage acting may be more expressive or exaggerated, and that some of the actors on the show had no training for television or film, I don't think that fully accounts for all of what many viewers feel is at times "overdone" acting.  If the problem -  or should I say "special circumstances"  -  behind the sometimes stagey acting of some of the actors on the show is simply a difference in NYC (theatre) and LA (TV/film) acting styles, then why is it that actors like Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker (and others) who had no previous TV experience consistently gave controlled performances and were able to reign in their supposedly exaggerated, theatrical tendencies?  Could it be because they were just damn good actors?  And that some others were not so good?

I agree that we do see some very "big" acting on DS, i.e. Broadway-style acting.  A perfect example would be the actress who played Jenny in 1897 and the antique shop co-owner in the Leviathan period (sorry I can't remember all the names).  In my own personal opinion, she was an effective actress on the show despite having a "big" style.  A broad style of acting is not the only explanation for what many see as the occasional bad acting by some actors on the show during the course of its five-year run.

I'm willing to overlook Frid's difficulty with his lines because the character he has created is so original and layered.  Joan Bennett had many fine moments despite having recurring difficulties with lines.  I'm entertained by Grayson Hall's sheer repertoire of, let's call them "acting accessories" that she assembled to produce our beloved Julia Hoffman; but I'm more impressed by those moments, much rarer, when real emotion came through Julia.

I admit that I'm partial to naturalness in acting, which we see throughout the work of KLS, Joel Crothers, and others.

I'm also skeptical, to put it mildly, that Dr. Lang's performance (to use only one recent example) would look much better if we were viewing it on stage.  Maybe to a silent film audience it would have been OK, but acting has evolved since the days of vaudeville.

There is such a thing as subtlety, shading, nuance, and realism in stage acting, too.  IMO, there are performances on DS that lack any of those attributes.  Some actors gave only one-dimensional characterizations.  Instead of characters, we got caricatures and cartoon villains (for example).  It's possible that that's what the directors wanted, and it may be unfair to blame the actor.  However, I don't think it's wrong to point out a bad performance.

I don't think it's only the "staginess" that some viewers have objected to.  Some performances were amateurish or flat without being over the top.  Sometimes this may have been because of inexperience, and the actor may have had potential that was later developed, but the fact remains that their work on DS was very ...  let's say elementary.

Those who hold that no one on DS ever "broke character" may wish to consult the old thread started by Chris2 titled  'Alexandra "Giggles" Moltke.  Examples of actors who went out of character are plentiful.

I don't think it should be necessary to apologize if one views the show with a critical eye.  For some of us, that comes naturally.  I can't help but make shades of distinctions, see gradations and contrasts.  It seems to me that a discussion forum like this is an appropriate venue to discuss the things that frustrate us as well as those that give us enjoyment.  Not criticism for critcism's sake, but IMO such discussions add a drop of reality to the tincture.  I think the show is strong enough to withstand a healthy does of skepticism at times.  It's surprising how irreverent some of the actors themselves can be about the show's shortcomings, including their own acting.  I give Chris Pennock a lot of credit for his candidness when he writes in KLS's DS Almanac 2000:

"I did have talent for shameless, over-the-top, quasi-Shakespearean-chewing-the-scenery acting."

And I don t think Mr. Pennock was the most egregious example (at least he got a lot better as time went on)!

Finally, I think some comments made in the other thread were a little hard on DarkShadows' brother.  Just because he thinks the show has bad acting doesn't make him an ignorant rube.  There are intelligent and thoughtful people who may have no interest in the show.  That doesn't make them morons.