Word: comics
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...master of the subtleties of court intrigue, a commanding figure in age and genius. He is an old man, to be sure, but a supremely dominating and dignified prince of the church. The dignity and dominance which Mr. Mantell often created were dispelled by a straining for laughs and comic effects, obtained by broad and undignified comic by-play, almost as soon as they were gained. "That inherent majesty of soul, that simplicity of demeanour, and that overwhelming power" which the actor and phrase-loving William Winter once found in Mr. Mantell's Richelieu were grievously lacking on Monday night...
...find the modified recitative of the original score standing side by side with stage capers of the Fred Stone school. Consequently, only the sureness and restraint of Mr. Brian's playing prevented much of the buffoonery from being quite out of place. There is difference between the old comic opera style and the musical comedy antics of today. "The Chocolate Soldier" requires the older type of acting, and fortunately most of the company recognized this regardless of the obvious efforts of the producer to instill a little "pep" into the performance...
...Pusuit of Pamela", as has been more than suggested above is not comedy--the plot, the characters, the procedure are all too outrageous for that; but played as a tremendous joke with a little serio-comic sentimental trimming, it succeeds admirably. No-one could take the adventures of the unsophisticated young American girl, who leaves her aged husband five minutes after marrying him to chase around the world after a penniless Englishmen, too seriously. The rapid geographical movements of the characters--from Hawaii via Japan, China, the North Pole, and Russia to Canada--are in themselves too preposterous for anything...
...Mice"-- a travesty of the heroic epic, was long attributed to Homer, and certainly is as old as the fifth century before Christ. Aristophanes mimicked Euripides with side splitting and enraging effectiveness. Cervantes' Don Quixote is sheer parody. In our own language we have a great volume of comic imitation. Shakespeare parodied and was parodied. Milton's ponderous solemnity was the subject of endless ribald travesty in his own momentous metre. Shelley did not shame to lampoon dear old Wordsworth...
...tariff. The only fair way to settle the perplexity is to allow the officials at each port of entry more personal discretion in the judgment of the various cases--to make the Quota Law itself more flexible, more capable of expansion as necessity arises. Unless this is done the comic opera ending in tragedy, will continue to be enacted. And all this is quite apart from the consideration of the light in which America will be regarded by those nations whose peoples we are treating in such a manner...