Word: effective
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...forth through the waves. The song "I Want to Be Ready" was danced by Dudley Williams, who joined Alvin Ailey in 1964. His piece was a plea to God to let him be prepared to die. With slow movements that spread across the stage, he had a very calming effect on the audience...
...other hand, many of the passages that have been retained are remarkably beautiful, and the dialogues contain much prose of great lyricism and power. The directors have given greater depth to this effect by generating a changing "scenery": slide projectors are used to create a background featuring anything from photographs of tranquil natural scenes, suggesting the peace of New Park, to black-and-white photographs of young men long gone, to illustrate the memory one character is narrating to another...
...classic stripping away of pretenses and whispered suggestions to reveal deliciously nasty truths and scandals that implicate all the characters. Nothing, in fact, is revealed: we never do find out what exactly happened to Charlie and Myra, and it doesn't matter. What does matter is the effect their unseen presence (or absence) has on a group of affluent, complacent New York professionals. Having made it big doesn't conceal the fact that they're ill-equipped and totally unprepared for dealing with a crisis of this kind. Throw in a case of whiplash, back spasms, temporary deafness...
...other elements besides the acting, this production is dead-on. It never misses a chance to up the ante through the clever use of visual and sound effects. Each time a new couple arrives, they are presaged by the glow of their headlights; then their silhouettes are thrown up, vastly enlarged, against the screen that marks the front door, creating an effect both menacing and inherently comical. The second act begins with no sound except that of Ken chewing and swallowing his dinner: magnified to such a volume that it reverberates through the theater, ironically underscoring Ken's loss...
...PLACEBO EFFECT, long recognized as real but temporary, may in fact last years. Half of men given dummy pills for enlarged prostates nevertheless said they felt better after two years. Their symptoms (like urinary-flow problems) improved, even though their prostate had grown...