Word: dickson
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...final scenes of James L. Dickson's Monmouth went their way, this reviewer was, at length, able to articulate the queasy sensation which had been plaguing him for the bulk of the evening. It was all like being locked into the fifth reprise of an ineluctably boring family argument: the grand issues reduced, more or less, to formalistic gabble, the verbal talent still in play diverted to scoring of debater's points, and the participants--persons deserving at least of interest, if not of affection--making themselves generally intolerable. I was, of course, merely imprisoned in that bituminous vacancy which...
...initial claim which the characters in Monmouth make on an audience's attention is no function of Mr. Dickson's writing. It is, rather, a natural by-product of his choice of materials: social and political traumatics in the Court of Charles II. Historical subjects are by now the traditional matter of Phyllis Anderson Prize plays, of which this effort is one, sharing an award with James Lardner's Come the Revolution. There is, or has been, a certain sense in this tradition, for historical references can lend any play a certain measure of unearned dramatic scale. Such loans, however...
...DICKSON BROS...
...same kind of confusion hits several other pieces. Chris Hart's "Jumping John" is a nice little parody of the modern-sordid school of writing, but like James Dickson's "The Modigliani Face," it relies for its humor on the dubious assumption that any real-life trend will be funny if exaggerated enough. Now that may be a sure-fire key to effective political satire (e.g. exaggerate the horrors of war and people will get fed up with it), but it doesn't always make for a good laugh. Dickson, by plugging in tidbits of humor-in-microcosm ("Brackley...worked...
...this summer, there were two basic problems confronting the innovative faculty, and only time will tell how well they have been solved. First, the incoming students indicated that they were not all that eager to try such new and experimental courses. They wanted the "regular thing," as provost David Dickson said in an interview...