Word: absurdist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...universe portrayed in Terry Won't Talk follows the absurdist archetype--it's only "new and fascinating," as Wheeler says in Terry Rex, "in the sense that a man who's been shipwrecked on a desert island for two hundred years might find a telephone new and fascinating." It includes the disutility of language: language is only dinner-table "chatter," and all attempts to get Terry to verbalize his meaning fail (Linn-Baker goes through the play without a word). There is the failure even of rational thought, as epitomized in the trivializing portrait of Chester. We get the dehumanizing...
Written soon after the masterful Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Enter a Free Man shows us a different Tom Stoppard, a playwright who has curbed (somewhat unwillingly) his absurdist humor and created a sensitive portrait of a man waging a rather pathetic battle with society. The result, an uneasy balance of typical Stoppardesque repartee ("Look at the Japanese! The Japanese inventors are small...") and more down-to-earth pathos, neverthless works as a unit. Enter a Free man may not rank with Stoppard's prize-winning comedies, but it remains a warm and amusing play...
...waving a large rubber rat at the cameras and declaring, "This represents the real problem of violence in America." Or "Laugh-In" comedian Pat Paulsen's short-lived write-in campaign. Remember Sam Yorty's 1972 New Hampshire bid? No one else does. Last time around, another gaggle of absurdist candidates spiced the winter grind: Stanley "Vote Alphabetically" Arnold (290 votes), the Rev. Arthur "We need to put Jesus Christ back into politics" Blessit (886 votes, or 1 per cent), Robert L. "Elect the Last President and Give America Parliamentary Government" Kelleher (113 votes), and the anti-Communist ticket...