Word: copouts
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...first issue does not succeed on that score. The centerfold is nonsexist in showing a man and woman in bed, but it is actually a copout; while she is fully exposed in strong light, he is in shadows and coyly covered with a sheet...
...vivid enough evocation of "police brutality," but it is also a Keystone copout. Why do the vaudevillian police suddenly attack the other dancers? Why does the Spanish lady's flamenco collapse into a laugh-creating parody of itself? The answer, of course, is that those actions titillate theatrically-for an instant. Ballet, an art of linear grace and movement, is even less a medium of pure intellect than painting or opera. But it is not made relevant by playing games with half-digested references to yesterday's headlines...
...leading member of this crew is Israel Horovitz, who wrote The Indian Wants The Bronx, and now Line. Other playwrights with a similar tenor of mind are John Guare (CopOut, The House of Blue Leaves), Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Happy Birthday, Wanda June), and Jules Feiffer (Little Murders, The White House Murder Case). In a sense, they are all cartoonists (as Feiffer actually is), commenting on life, but never really bringing life to birth on the stage. They all write rather like Madison Avenue dropouts, reaching for the zingy zany line that will somehow sell their intrinsically pessimistic little packages. They...
...call the Berrigans prophets is a tragic copout. No extraordinary seers or saints, they are simply men who put us all to shame by their very human example of realistic courage, imagination and faith...
...Nothing is happening here. I feel as if I am wasting my time. I have to get back home and help my people." That made me begin to re-evaluate my position. Life was easier in Europe, especially on an American salary, but it can become a real copout...