Word: dictional
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...Joyce's famous epiphanies, they seem disastrously flat on the screen, at least in this adap tation. It falls to John Gielgud to deliver the most famous of them, a priest's vivid description of the torments of hell. He speaks the words well enough, his precise diction giving them something like the burning power of dry ice. But in the truncated form the screen demands, they lose much of their power. Strick helps not at all with his dismally conventional way of shooting...
...performers of these parts are to convince us of the trancendence of their bond, they must use the one tool Shakespeare gives them--his poetry. Its power is extraordinary, as when it switches from the prevalent formal diction to simple, direct monosyllables in the Act II meeting between the two lovers--so straightforward that its language has become a model for greeting cards and sentimental wallposters. Shakespeare never lets us doubt that the love of Romeo and Juliet is the offspring not of their hearts but of their dreams, their words...
Neither Francesco nor the novel that contains him is without great flaws. The barracks vulgarity of Part 1 is as tedious as basic training, and the narrator's stilted diction in Part 2 is hardly more en dearing. Women serve principally as walk-ons in The Vicar of Christ, including Declan's wife Kate, whose tragic death drives him to the monastery...
...suitors who flock about the sisters are also well-played. John Bellucci masterfully plays Vershinin, the philosophizing soldier with whom Masha falls in love. Bellucci works his rich and versatile voice like a musical instrument, retaining extraordinary control of volume, diction and timing in long, technically taxing monologues. He meticulously defines his character by pacing constantly around the stage in repeated circles that parallel his sermons...
...most entertaining of the three shows, marred only by the lackluster performance of Jennifer Christian as Belinda. Many of her lines were inaudible, perhaps because of what sounded like laryngitis, combined with poor diction. Reciting dialogue with little or no emotion, she often acts too immature, pouting when she is confused or upset and picking at her fingernails, a habit that quickly becomes annoying...