Word: comicly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When we think of George Bernard Shaw, the first qualities that come to mind are a brilliant comic gift and an incisive, yet essentially kindly eye for social satire. It is sometimes difficult to remember that the playwright was also a serious thinker with serious, if now some what outmoded, philosophical ideas that he incorporated in many of his major plays. In this vein, a particularly successful fusion of comedy and philosophy is "Man and Superman," now enjoying a lively and stylish presentation at the American Repertory Theatre...
...rest of the cast is as solid as one might expect from the ART. Some of the actors choose to exaggerate the comic tendencies of their characters: Ripley turns the incurable romantic, "Ricky-Ticky-Tavy" Octavius into a singing, simpering, sentimental fool; Jack Willis, in a minor satiric role as an American industrialist buying his way into ancient English titles and estates, makes a caricature of himself with his loud, hearty declamations and zestful crudeness of manner. Geidt lacks Mephistophelian finesse as both Mendoza and Satan, but is nicely balanced by Epstein who is superb as the stiffly and stuffily...
...scene. Not that the actors and director David Wheeler don't have a damn good try at making it work. The debaters deliver their arguments with conviction and fluency, and the director attempts to break up the essential monotony of a dialectic discussion through physical movement and some pleasant comic touches: Mendoza's four brigands become four devils, horns and all, who periodically cross the stage with admirably solemn expressions, replenishing drinks and once bearing a crucifix that is passed around like a specimen "on view...
Lemmon's ability to play both comic and romantic leads allowed his career to prosper...
...never easy being a spy in the house of love. It is certainly not as funny as Dunne and Gordon must have thought it could be. But the movie does find some grotesque comic traction when Maggie and Sam move from the passive to the active mode, their prime target being poor Anton. They plant evidence indicating that he's having an affair on the side. They ruin the restaurant he runs by bringing in a horde of cockroaches the night the New York Times food critic is dining there. They destroy his fallback career as a model by making...