Word: caste
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Decades of Congress-bashing by opportunistic politicians coupled with high-profile scandals seem to confirm Mark Twain's famous statement that "there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." Representatives such as Jay Kim (R-Calif.), the first member of Congress convicted of a federal crime to cast a vote in the House (he was found guilty of accepting illegal campaign contributions), only confirm this perception...
...even with an all-star cast of 1990s pop sensations, the legacy of Legacy is dubious. It leads us to realize that even 25 years and numerous drug rehabilitations later, the best band to do Fleetwood Mac is still Fleetwood Mac. And it makes us wonder if our parents might have been right after all: maybe Stevie Nicks really is irreplaceable...
...With her cast of eight, Tadjedin has built an effective rearrangement. The Cocktail Party is three acts of point-blank life, improbable yet familiar. It is straight drama, structured around the marital problems of one London couple, paced according to the speech of its eight-person cast and having in its three acts only two settings--a London drawing room and a psychiatrist's consulting room. Rising from this conventionally-British yet potentially-portentous setting, Eliot's language manages a tone of religious pronouncement and philosophical anguish that still sounds natural coming from the play's routine, middle-aged characters...
Working with such loaded lines, the cast still makes the play more comprehensible than it is on paper, loosening the free verse rhythm of Eliot's lines for the sake of a more conversational composure. Saadi Soudavar '00 in particular, in his enviable starring role as the "Unidentified Guest" delivers thunderingly philosophic lines with a disarming confidence that keeps the play from the brink of mental boorishness. He passes lumbering lines like, "There is certainly no purpose in remaining in the dark / Except long enough to clear from the mind / The illusion of having ever been in the light," through...
...also along these lines that the circumstantial humor of The Cocktail Party thrives. Reminiscent of latter-day sitcom standards, much of its humor is based on the sudden ironic entrance of various cast members. For example, in the midst of a weighty discussion between the "Unidentified Guest" and Edward Chamberlayne (Sam Shaw '99), the troubled husband whose marriage is the subject of the play, the hysterical, aunt-like Julia (Emily Stone '99) rushes in to retrieve her lost umbrella and maternally questions Edward about his seemingly drunken companion. We wish we could parrot her seeming naivete...