Word: despairing
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...lava rock outside San Salvador, called El Playón, that was recently discovered to be a dumping ground for victims of the right-wing death squads. The bodies were left there to be consumed by vultures. Another worker, a cane cutter, reflected both the hope and the despair of El Salvador's enduring dilemma. "We think our vote will be important," he declared, "but who in hell knows what's going to happen...
...characters underplay too far. Isenberg in the role of Viola leaves a bit too much to the script. Hailed by other characters as vivid, brilliant, sensitive, this Viola does little but throw up her hands in despair as she is mistaken for her brother, attacked by Toby and Aguecheek, adored and insulted, and made a pawn of. The play's grand denouement scene falls prey to this gradual slowing of pace, seeming just a bit too serene as a set of twins and two pairs of lovers are reunited...
...despair and humiliation greeting the audience do not let up, ranging from the all-too-believable scene when the young son of Willy's old boss cooly fires him flat after 36 years and adds with crushing casualness, "Oh, and, uh, could you drop off your sample case as soon as possible?" to the wrenching scene in a restaurant bathroom, when Willy cannot remember where he is. Thinking he is in a hotel room in Boston, Willy relives a time when Biff, fresh out of high school, surprises him fooling around with a secretary to while away the lonely nights...
Given the past history of arms talks, it is easy to despair about the chances for real reductions. But much of that failure is due to the idea that nuclear arms reductions can be pursued in the same manner and with the same urgency as other diplomatic goals. They can't. We must cease the games of atomic chicken that Haig has played in recent days. And then we must make disarmament our top priority, even if it means the sacrifice of some short-term hopes for a better world...
...House of Stewardesses, in which the actors attempted to achieve the illusion of objects flying from the screen by swaying like pendulums. This was followed by Whispers of the Wolf ("Boy, sounds really scary, eh, kids!" howled the Count), which turned out to be an essay in abject despair by Ingmar Bergman, complete with a dwarf, camera compositions like geometry proofs and racked dialogue like "Life makes me vomit" - all of it rendered in subtitles that were almost obscured by dirt in the corner of the projector...