Word: deadpan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Perhaps the most wounding discovery is how much people dislike the very professionalism that newspapermen pride themselves on most-the ability to transmit facts without bias or feeling, in the best deadpan Dragnet manner of "only the facts, ma'am." People who are used to having Cronkite or Chancellor escort the news into their homes feel no connection with reporters, even those with recognized bylines, who impersonally fill their front pages. That contrast asserts Arnold Rosenfeld, editor of the Dayton Daily News, often favors TV personalities "who we print journalists think do a pretty lame job of news gathering...
...gentle to rage against the dying of the light, Norman goes in for a good sassy snarl. Rather like the father in "Da," he is one of those curmudgeons you grow fond of simply because he is so deadpan funny. But his sarcastic bark is a stoic camouflage for his losing bite on life. In one affecting scene, Norman goes out to pick strawberries and returns shortly with an empty pail. A memory lapse has prevented him from recognizing the old path and reduced him to a frightened child seeking the solace of a familiar face...
...holds science writers themselves responsible for all the doom and gloom: because scientists write only for one another, usually in terms all but incomprehensible to lay people, word of new theories and breakthroughs is sometimes passed on to the public in overly dramatic and exaggerated form. Still, the most deadpan writing cannot disguise the drama of some of science's recent discoveries. The Big Bang theory of the universe, for example, has quite correctly convinced much of the public that the cosmos is unimaginably terrifying and violent. In the light of such findings, even theories that have been repudiated...
Director David Montgomery allows Fry's witty script to carry much of the humor by having his actors deadpan as if they were indeed acting in Antigone. But no one was fooled, and the audience groaned and howled as if cued by the double entendres and pompous orations. The combination of a good script and a willing if not polished cast make for an enjoyable hour...
Beyond making themselves understood, however, some of the cast falter, unsure whether to play the operetta utterly deadpan--letting the audience laugh at these ridiculous characters--or to reveal that they, too, know the whole thing is a joke. Catherine Weary's sparkling Josephine holds the stage through sheer vocal perfection alone--she could probably handle Puccini with ease. Donald Hovey's Ralph Rackstraw, too, has a full, clean tenor. Now, admittedly there isn't all that much anyonecan make of the milquetoast roles of the love-struck couple; but both Weary and Hovey shuffle between dead seriousness and deadpan...