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Another guest arrives after many years away in the far reaches of the empire: Hesione’s sister, Lady Ariadne Utterword, played by Ms. Fraser with magnificently decadent ennui in an exquisitely calibrated comic turn — by far the sharpest on display.

Last year, the Musée d’Orsay purchased “Hercules Delivering Hesione,” by the German master Hans Thoma.

After all, no actress plays Shakespeare's Beatrice, Shaw's Hesione or Rattigan's Hester the same way.

Anyone who thinks Shaw a dry old stick should look at Hesione Hushabye's astonishing speech on the transfiguring power of love, which here passes almost unnoticed.

There Hesione became the bride of Telamon; while her brother Podarces, later known as Priam, was redeemed by his people and made King of Troy.