Word: hysterias
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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HORROR AND HYSTERIA are the recurring keynotes in Christopher Durang's Baby with the Buthwater: like his Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, this latest work both shocks and entertains. But unlike Sister Mary it fails to fully, combine the two. The most pointed insights in Baby are not funny, and many of its best jokes seem incidental to the main plot. Baby seems almost to contain two separate plays. The first act and initial scenes of the second provide a satire of American family life; the rest of the play deals with the problems of an individual...
...given blood tests and be instructed to "plant grass" to control the lead dust and to "keep [their] homes clean." That advice did not satisfy many subcommittee members. Said Hernandez in explanation: "If we went out and started running bulldozers around, we'd end up with even greater hysteria...
...truce that is called gets broken quickly. "Chasing royals is like a drug, an addiction," says Writer Ashley Walton of the Daily Express. The Queen's press secretary, Michael Shea, mutters about sanctions, but the Tower of London is open only to tourists, not prisoners. "A new wave of hysteria has gripped the more sensational press," he laments. "Anything to do with any aspect of the royal family, no matter how minute, is treated as a huge news story...
...with a large birthmark on her cheek and a mischievous smile in her eyes tells a virginal girlfriend: "You don't know what it's like to be ugly and still feel beautiful." An angel-faced teen-age boy, whose ardor for Fascism amounts almost to sexual hysteria, is shot by some of the villagers he tried to kill; seeing this, his Fascist father flies into a fatal jitterbug of despair, burrowing his head into the hard earth. Cecilia, at six the youngest of the fleeing villagers, finds the ordeal a delicious, dangerous game, like hopscotching through...
...played a similar character to Elaine in Woody Allen's mediocre "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," but she seems to have lost some versatility, Granted, this script does not call for a wide emotional range, but surely the woman can do something besides act perplexed and frightened. Borderline hysteria can be mildly tiring. Hayes's Ted, with matinee-idol looks, seems to have a better grasp on his character's emotional range. But in a film like this, great acting is not of the essence. The cast provides sufficient body for the swift and silly script; they...