Word: comic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...EARLY GRAVE, by Wallace Markfield. On a kind of comic Volkswagen odyssey through Brooklyn, four Greenwich Village intellectuals search for the funeral of a compatriot and discover themselves: pathetic, rather pretentious fellows who at heart prefer the cult of Humphrey Bogart to the cult of the Partisan Review...
...born there, in Mississippi, heir to and prisoner of the crinoline-and-lace tradition; he died there in 1962. In writing 19 novels and 80 short stories, almost all about the South, he won through to an understanding that in its richness, scope and completeness, tragic vision and comic invention, will not soon be equaled. At his best he penetrated the magnolia curtain of Southern illusions to the secret springs of motive and action. He said, in effect, "This is the way it feels to be Southern"-something the North needs to know and the South may even need...
...most satisfying gag is the filming of a TV commercial-a hilarious sequence in which the Hertz man is catapulted out of limbo and lands everywhere but in the driver's seat. The person who does land with solid comic authority in this otherwise tiresome and familiar romp is Actress Schneider, the gemutlich Viennese sex kitten who has purred beguilingly through more pretentious trifles, such as The Victors, The Cardinal and Boccaccio '70. But Lemmon, though adroit as always, is now well along toward proving that the most gifted of farceurs cannot build a really distinguished career simply...
When the Summer Players shift into the comic, despite an increase in movement on stage, the pace slows surprisingly. Because of the abnormally swift passage of time, there is an understandable loss of continuity which accounts in part for the sense of slowness. But a welter of buccolic buffoonery only enhances the discontinuity which in a production of some length (running time is four hours) is regrettable. Schmidt might have cut the longish fourth act or at least dropped one of two dance sequences...
...serves only as a frame on which to hang a few clever lines, and, at least on opening night, the timing on these lines was not particularly good. M. Tapan (Paul Benedict) and Mme. Tapan (Jo Lane) both nearly save the show with their marvelous facial expressions and perfect comic gestures...