Word: devilment
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bloodworth makes it equally clear that even without its foreign devils, Southeast Asia would be no Garden of Eden; its corruption is not an Occidental import brought in by missionaries and gunboats. The native pattern has found "browbeaten peasants" regularly caught between bandits and greedy oligarchies. Revolution, the "habit-forming" coup, has meant exchanging one tyrant for another. "Communism," says Bloodworth, is just "the devil the poor don't yet know...
...Black Muslims await Allah's destruction of the white devil but the Republic of New Africa and others are plunging into the revolutionary struggle. The first shoots of Afro-Islamic law are appearing in drafts of Black Laws and in emerging bleak courts. I have observed some of these beginnings from the inside and I estimate the potential to be comparable to the dreams of the early Zionists...
...Zone" offers this forced convergence of "high" and "low" humor, which is too naturalistic to be absurd and too pregnant with symbolism to pose as farce. The "high" humor of the Devil as Angel finds expression in a scene in which an Old Man and an Old Woman solicit his aid in bringing their daughter back to life. The sarcastic expose of superstition is vitiated by a focus on the campy quaintness of the old couple and the vulgarity of their revivified daughter (Alaina Warren). The mixing of styles proves particularly annoying in Felder's early appearances as the Devil...
...with psychological conflict to support this elaborate metaphysics. David Dukes plays the part with consistent, low-keyed humor. His southern accent is fine. As the deserter on the make, he is convincing. But where is the potential interest in watching an ordinary man such as this consort with the Devil? The question was never answered for me, nor as far as I can judge for the rest of the audience-who gave only desultory applause to the first...
...around him-and Army press agent, his wife, his girlguide daughters "One-Eyes," "Two-Eyes" and "Three-Eyes" -play no logical role in this moral crisis. Perhaps, if only for that perverse reason, they are more interesting than General Chestnut himself. The old Man guffaws, clutches his chest (the Devil has made off with his heart) and then make a sentimental journey back in time meeting first the Devil disguised as his old horse Prince, and then himself as a young man. It's a silly series of elaborations which I feel almost embarrassed to report, for the mortal failings...