Word: comic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even Italians approach this chaos in a comic spirit. Perhaps they have no choice; a purge of the Italian government a la Watergate would leave the country without a single official or institution. Except for the very rich, no one can continue to ignore an inflation rate of 30 per cent, prices that prevent some 10 per cent of the population from eating meat, or an unemployment rate that does not allow eight per cent of the labor force to earn a living. The ordinary citizen seems to have two alternatives: satirical laughter, or despair...
...evening began with a joke. Seven members of the orchestra played the Schleptet in E flat, S.O., by musicologist Peter Schickele, more familiarly known as P.D.Q. Bach (1807 -- 1742), the last and the least of Johann Sebastian's sons. Satirizing serious music, the Schleptet demands a wide range of comic effects, including a nose-dive by the French horn player, which sends fragments of a collapsible horn sailing across the stage into the audience, and woodwind burps usually reserved for a beginner's practice room...
...this collection of emotional still lifes seemed too pallid for the English stage, so Travers retired to the seaside to watch cricket. But when he was well into his 80s he decided to try again, and succeeded in broadening his vision and style without losing his comic bite, a feat that eluded even Bernard Shaw in his declining years...
...that made it "improper and unpleasant to reveal anything about sex," Travers felt he could create characters like Alma, the heroine of Bed. By the last act, Alma is chasing her fatigued new husband back into the bedroom; audiences affectionately cheer her on to a rendezvous that completes the comic transformation from Victorian prude to exuberant earth mother...
...other actors skillfully fill in the details of Buchner's sketchy minor roles. Leo-Pierre Roy plays the parts of captain, sergeant, innkeeper, and pawnkeeper with equal comic grace. Christopher Agee is the model of a fiery young drum major interested only in getting his way, and Ann Strassner is especially good as Katey, the accomodating barmaid, trying to keep everyone happy while having a good time herself. But paradoxically it is Bonnie Ann DeLorme as the victimizing doctor who offers the most fully developed characterization. DeLorme's visible self-hatred as she forces Woyzeck to live on peas...