Word: comics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Follies, however, reflect the sadness that accompanies the dissolution of myths reinforcing the American way of life--perhaps because the show's authors are less interested in taking pot shots at American beliefs than in evoking the anomie that results from their loss. The first break with the viciously comic tenor of the early part of the show is the hauntingly elegiac "Nothing to be Sure Of." A dirge on the familiar theme of the son lost at war, this duet is made memorable by the beautiful blending of Greg Gordon's baritone and Carol Flynn's crystalline soprano...
What remains confused, however, is the underlying rationale for the show's abrupt shifts in mood, which are matched only by the noisiness of the set changes. To be sure, Bicentennial Follies is fun to watch; it's certainly possible to enjoy lilting voices and mildly amusing comic vignettes without insisting on dramatic coherence. If Bicentennial Follies gets good mileage out of the exposure and inversion of American values, it also illustrates the inversion of one good old American saying: for here is one case, at least, where the sum of the parts is infinitely greater than the whole...
...TIME changing to a comic book...
...that's an example of Doonesbury humor, I'm glad I leave the comic strips to kids and liberals...
...hapless affability, but it is still only one note. All of the other roles are played by Ron Leibman and Anita Gillette, whose talents for mimicry and mime relieve a good deal of the script's bittersweet sentimentality and soft-core cynicism. Even evoked as burlesque, the brooding comic spirit of Dante is not suited to the underworld of show business, where the principal sin is usually self-delusion rather than pride...