Photos by George E. Joseph © The New York Public Library of Performing Arts; Sketches by Me

Review Excerpts

“SHAKESPEARE IN PARK BOWS WITH ‘PERICLES’….The small, wiry Randall Duk Kim seems at first an unlikely choice for the sorely tried prince, whose adventures richly deserve to title ‘Perils of Pericles.’ But though he can manage little with the early scenes, he rises splendidly to the occasion in the climactic recognition scene in which he has an excellent partner in Marybeth Hurt, the winsome Marina….”
               –Douglas Watt, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS (7/2/1974) 

“…The Joseph Papp New York Shakespeare Festival production… is doubly blessed in the choice of lead actors, Randall Duk Kim and Marybeth Hurt giving superior Shakespearean performances as Pericles and Marina…. Mr. Kim is an unlikely choice to play a romantic leading man. But he is quite convincing as the young impulsive Pericles and grows in strength and dignity as the saddened, older Pericles. I assume that we can look forward to further expansion of his talent (why not Prospero next time instead of Trinculo?) …The recognition scene…is brimming with emotion….A beautiful scene, beautifully played…”
               –Mel Gussow, NEW YORK TIMES (7/2/1974)

“WILL’S ONE GLORIOUS SCENE….Tenuous though it may be, there does seem to be a central theme in the idea of man’s debasement of love, through incest, prostitution, betrayal, infidelity, and other crimes against love illustrated in a scattershot plot. But the play’s strongest impact comes in a late scene—a glorious scene surely of Shakespeare’s authorship—when faithful love is rewarded and Pericles is united with his lost daughter. Randall Duc Kim and Marybeth Hurt play it to sweet, almost unbearably tender perfection, with a sense of emotional integrity that is utterly lacking in the rest of this frivolous production…”
               –Marilyn Stasio, CUE MAGAZINE (7/15/1974)

“…The company appears as a band of strolling players….About twenty minutes before the show starts, an actor comes out and begins to sweep the stage. He is Randall Duk Kim, who plays Pericles. “…Nothing the evening offers is as exciting as the performance of Mr. Kim, whose Pericles is as volatile and clear as Hotspur; his heartbroken, emotional scenes are always believable, and his speaking of the poetry—there are a number of beautiful passages—in a deep, slightly hoarse voice, is eloquent. It was Mr. Kim, you may remember, who made a comic masterpiece out of Trinculo earlier this season….”
               –Edith Oliver, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE (7/15/1974)

“…As Pericles, Randall Duk Kim seems at first too slight for the impetuous, heroic prince. But Kim, who is certainly New York’s finest young actor of Oriental descent, has an athlete’s concentration of movement that gives him a stage command far beyond his diminutive size, and when he ages into the melancholy, bereft Pericles, he achieves a dignity worthy of the weightier Prospero…”
                 –Charles Michener, Newsweek (7/15/1974)