Word: humor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Levin is partial to the kind of playful verbal humor which Eugene Ionesco used brilliantly in The Bald Soprano. Sometimes the dialogue falls flat: "I was trying to catch a fly." "Why?" "Why? Would you have me catch a cold instead?" But more often it is mildly amusing, as when one of the men logically demonstrates that the tree is not a tree. The funniest moment in the play, though, is not verbal at all; it comes when the other man is unable...
...almost more than Western veterans of many anti-Communist battles could bear. "Love," said Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, "love and respect for other people is what we need." The love feast lasted all week. The beaming smile splashing across Khrushchev's moonface, the blunt, back-slapping peasant humor, the friendly-bear quality of the Soviet boss when he decides to be amiable-all these familiar traits were on full display in Moscow as U.S., British and Russian diplomats sat down to try to negotiate a nuclear test ban agreement...
...plot revolves around those old comic motifs, dissipation, insanity and betrayal. There are also ghosts. In the central role of Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, who disguises himself as a simple farmer to escape the curse on his family, tenor Jan Ewing gave an inspired performance. It may be that his humor lies a good deal in the direction of mugging, but it is muggery of a very high order indeed. As Dick Dauntless, his nautical foster brother, Peter Larson overcame a vague singing voice by the force of his agile personality. His first act hornpipe was a show stopper...
Director Maurice Breslow capitalized upon the situation humor of a story in which an attractive village shopgirl determines to marry a fussy widower. She meets him on an ocean voyage around the world which she is taking on the money she has won in a newspaper contest; he is taking the trip in order to write the "Marco Polo Series of Chatty Guide Books...
...lovely lilt of her voice as she ended her statements with "mightn't I?" or "wouldn't it?" helped her to bring the character to life with remarkable naturalness. The sparkle of her eyes as she spoke and the adroitness with which she changed facial expressions and movements created humor in the domineering character of Miss Z. Subsequently, it became perfectly understandable to the audience that the persistent shop girl would not only improve the writers manners and make him a satisfied shop keeper, but get him to fall in love with her in the bargain. The play's final...