This installment of "The Fugitive" is one of the purest, simplest presentations of the core idea of the show, the pure theme we have now seen so many variations of: Kimble encounters a sympathetic character in a predicament, and tries to help the person regain personal power; then someone else learns his (Kimble's) true identity and calls the authorities, and then the sympathetic character must follow Kimble's lead, take ownership of his (or her) own life, and assert his (or her) new personal power by helping Kimble escape.
But this installment is very simple, and all about one person: the Hermit, and his predicament is purely existential, without any complexity. He battles only himself, and his own mortality and physical limits (illness), and his own marginal sanity. Laurence Naismith does such an amazing job with such an amazing script that the other actors (including David Janssen) don't have to do anything here except wear the right costumes and recite their one-dimensional lines. Really, they might just as well be props.
Naismith's part alternates between quasi-rational self-presentation and lunatic feverish raving. Naismith demonstrates total mastery of the sense and the mood: frenzied and almost-intelligible, but not quite. The whole thing reminds me of Samuel Beckett's monologues like KRAPP'S LAST TAPE, and his strange first-person non-novels like MOLLOY and MALONE DIES. Looking around the web, I'm not seeing any recordings of Naismith reading anything by Beckett, but he might have done them in performance, and if he did, there's no doubt he did them fantastically well. If only we could watch!
But this installment is very simple, and all about one person: the Hermit, and his predicament is purely existential, without any complexity. He battles only himself, and his own mortality and physical limits (illness), and his own marginal sanity. Laurence Naismith does such an amazing job with such an amazing script that the other actors (including David Janssen) don't have to do anything here except wear the right costumes and recite their one-dimensional lines. Really, they might just as well be props.
Naismith's part alternates between quasi-rational self-presentation and lunatic feverish raving. Naismith demonstrates total mastery of the sense and the mood: frenzied and almost-intelligible, but not quite. The whole thing reminds me of Samuel Beckett's monologues like KRAPP'S LAST TAPE, and his strange first-person non-novels like MOLLOY and MALONE DIES. Looking around the web, I'm not seeing any recordings of Naismith reading anything by Beckett, but he might have done them in performance, and if he did, there's no doubt he did them fantastically well. If only we could watch!