Word: impishness
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...finally there is Lear, a white, tousle-haired man whose crinkled face and impish carriage remind one more of an elf than a king. But this is not unintentional, for Kozintsev's Lear emphasizes correctly the humanness of its central character. Lear's fall is not of the same grandeur as Oedipus in Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus-Tyrannus. Rather it is the fall of a vain, petty man whose self-centered need for flattery destroys his only loving daughter and ruins his sacred kingdom...
What this poetic approach too often misses is Williams' deft and impish sense of humor. The Glass Menagerie is autobiography in the form of a situation comedy. The first half of the play could be called "Mama's Family": Amanda Wingfield, a fiftyish matron whose husband abandoned her 15 years earlier, plots to find a "gentleman caller" who will support her and marry her shy, lame daughter Laura. In the second half, a young man does call-no gentleman, rather an awkward go-getter whose own glory days are long past-and a bittersweet romance flutters through...
...majority of my foot up his moral butt"). Murphy can do creepily precise parodies of Bill Cosby, Stevie Wonder and the Mandinka-coiffed Mr. T. If venom rather than vinegar laced these creations, they would prove too toxic for the TV audience. But behind them is the impish good will of a little boy exercising his craft, cadging merrily for laughs...
...real gypsies, using their own names and, more or less, playing themselves. Six years ago, Actor Robert Duvall saw one of them, an eight-year-old charmer named Angelo Evans, arguing with a woman on a Manhattan street corner. For Duvall it was love at first sight of an impish star quality. Since then, he has spent more than $1 million of his own money to bring Angelo's story to the screen...
...complexity of the intertwining roles called for more rehearsal time than the actors apparently got. Bob Gunton is a shade too stilted as James, hoping perhaps that physical constriction could simulate advanced middle age. Frank Langella moves with grand assurance across Broadway's Longacre stage, ranging from impish mischief to laceration of soul. As Eleanor and her alter ego, Damon and Kerr lend their roles compelling honesty, and Roxanne Hart is a five-alarm sexual conflagration...