Word: dialectics
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...author has, in fact, produced a wonderfully funny comedy by combining two very different comic techniques. He has gone back several centuries for gimmicks like people hidden in closets, boys dressed as girls, chairs pulled out from under their prospective occupants, burlesque dialect and gestures, and even bad jokes. But Wilder has not forgotten the innovating spirit of his Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth days, either. Every main character in The Matchmaker has at least one outright soliloquy in which he steps up to the footlights and blatantly tells the audience his thoughts and motivations...
...slapstick is a theatrical narcotic, and both Wilder and director Tyrone Guthric almost inhale too much of the stuff. Having written the play expressly for Ruth Gordon in the role of Mrs. Levi, the author has given her too many lines that depend on dialect alone. Guthrie has compounded the peccadillo by letting Miss Gordon maintain her rasping voice too loud for too much of the time. The result, especially when Loring Smith is sharing the scene as the booming and gesticulating Vandergelder, is a shouting match that numbs the audience and detracts from those scenes wherein pandemonium reigns legitimately...
...Your praise may be too lavish . . . You should not applaud your own story. If the story you have told has made no impression on the listener, do not repeat it in a vain attempt to get some response . . . Unless you are very good at it, never use a dialect in telling an anecdote...
...Morning Show. In her place he hired blonde Edith Adams, probably no better at singing than Betty. Why did he do it? Explained Paar: "We're on the air 15 hours a week, mostly without script, so everyone has to double in brass. Edith Adams can do any dialect, sing in Italian, German and French, and mimic personalities from Louis Armstrong to Marilyn Monroe. What's more, she's full of ideas, and ideas are what we live...
...originally written for the stage, the score is full of surprises: when sung, some of the waltzes and polkas take on a warbling charm they do not have as orchestra pieces alone. The libretto is preposterous, but offers linguists an unusually rich sampling of Viennese slang, a quaint, native dialect distantly related to German. (Samples: charmuziern, v., to flirt; G'spusi, n., girl friend; Remasuri, n., big shindig; tulli, adj., first-rate.) Soprano Schwarzkopf, veteran of Mozart and Brahms, has a fine romp. General performance and recording: tulli...