I remember seeing that production of Fifth of July on the telly. I'd read the play previously, but watching it made Wilson's use of overlapping dialogue much clearer.
Thomas was, I believe, the third actor to play the male lead, Ken Talley. William Hurt played the role off-Broadway, and Christopher Reeve was the original Ken on Broadway. (Somewhat eerie, that.)
I need to buy the DVD of 5TH OF JULY; I saw the Broadway production with both Reeve and Thomas. My friend Helen Stenborge (Mrs Barnard Hughes)
is Aunt Sally, and I dearly love her. The only other performances of her on video, I believe, are the Merchant-Ivory THE EUROPEANS with Lee Remick and a HOMICIDE episode in which she and Barney play a married couple who killed their respective spouses to be together.
The outing with my dad turned out to be an unpleasant one: now that he's no longer at death's door, the King Lear power is back and we're all morons for neither anticipating his whims or allowing him to be needy when he's weak and terrified. I really don't want to analyze the situation, but the facts are these:
1. It was the VA (Veteran's Authority) hospital that diagnosed his hemorrhaging that led to the colonoscopy so he believes his doctor there knows everything. The fact that the VA in the past 15 years has never recommended/enforced a colonoscopy means that there were several opportunities to catch this cancer at an earlier stage.
2. The paperwork with the VA is ridiculous and my father refused other forms of Medicaid recommended by his oncologist to get what he believes to be cheaper prescriptions through the VA.
3. My father, who is not a poor man, is penny wise and pund foolish.
4. The paperwork for the VA from the oncologist's office had not been done on Monday afternoon and it certainly wasn't ready this morning, meaning all travel was futile. The angrier my dad got, the meaner he got.
So, when we got to the VA with no paper work, he told my brother and me to wait in the car. Because his walking is poor, I said I was going in with him. His response: "keep your mouth shut." Right now I want to kick his ass from here to Kingdom come. I'll probably sulk the rest of the day, and try to be in a better mood tomorrow. I know exactly why Goneril and Regan wanted to tie Lear down!