A Videotape Worth Showing! William Gillette's "castle" in Hadlyme was one of the first tourist sites our family visited when we moved to Connecticut. We heard there that Gillette had been a playwright and actor, but until I say the Connecticut Heritage Productions' portrayal of Gillette's contribution to the American theatre, I didn't understand that Gillette had changed the way theatre and acting were conceived in America. Gillette humanized acting. He once won an oratorical contest by delivering a self-conscious dialogue; but his father convinced Gillette that had Douglass delivered his speech as Gillette had delivered it, no one would have remembered. Gillette began to deliver his words on stage as if he were just them thinking them, choosing from among words.

The Connecticut Heritage Productions videotape shows him standing at the edge of the Connecticut River rolling the words over and over on his tongue so they would be there to grope toward during a performance. One of the actors Gillette influenced was Helen Hayes whose first Broadway role was as daughter to Gillette's father. Hayes almost didn't get the part - Her "slightly southern" accent offended the director, but Gillette promised to work with her and did, teaching her acting as well as diction, sharing his 18 curtain calls with her.

An important part of the Connecticut Heritage film is a series of such recollections by Helen Hayes. Gillette is portrayed as young, intense and driven to do such things as "knock about the country: to learn an 'under acting' style based on middle class dialogue. Gillette is also shown in later life, trying but never succeeding in recuperating from his wife's death after only six years of marriage, sensitive both in solitude and portraying Sherlock Holmes, the role for which he is most known.

The production and Helen Hayes' recollection make Gillette human: a fragile, reclusive. Handsome man with a "strange, haunting voice like the E string of a violin." The videotape is worth showing. It lingers on. Connecticut Heritage Productions is a nonprofit corporation, whose purpose is to highlight Connecticut's cultural history. The Connecticut Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Middletown Foundation funds them for the Arts, and the Friends of CHP. You may find out more about the Gillette videotape, and about their other projects, by contacting: Connecticut Heritage Productions 46 Bretton Rd. Middletown, Connecticut 06457. (860) 347-7771. -M.Q. April 1987