Word: lightbulb
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Magic is Paul's only interest. The play opens and closes with one of his tricks, an illuminated lightbulb floating magically to the ceiling and back down again. Paul has no goal other than to practice, timidly stammering that he isn't ready to perform, but after a chance meeting with a talent manager his mother pushes him onto the stage. He fails his audition miserably, tripping over himself and botching endlessly practiced tricks. But the occasion sparks a brief romance between Enid and the manager, Jerry Wexler. The moment doesn't last, of course; it only brings the tired...
...Floating Lightbulb is the story of the Pollacks, a struggling family on the outskirts of everything in 1945 Brooklyn. Max is a small-time numbers runner and waiter supporting a mistress he can't afford, in debt to the loansharks and waiting for his number to come in. Enid is supporting the family by some unspecified means and worrying about her philandering husband and her drop-out kid. Steve, an incipient delinquent, steals his father's pocket change to gamble with the boys, plays hookey and perhaps commits arson. Steve will end up like his father, on the edge...
...just as hard to relate to the characters in The Floating Lightbulb Allen's latest play Billed as a bittersweet comedy; the script--published a year after its first staging--unfortunately isn't very funny and certainly isn't very sweet It's hard to tell what it is Pathos can be gripping, but only when the people are worth caring about The folks in The Floating Lightbulb are real enough; like anyone, they screw around, they stutter, and they cry. But there is nothing special about them, and it takes too much effort to care. Without making the play...
...PROBLEM with The Floating Lightbulb is that while Allen is painting the common problems he always has, this time he shows them only as common. His previous plays and movies worked because he magnified his own fear, shyness, or insecurity enough to catch reflections from his audiences' souls. Allen plays such as Don't Drink the Water and Play it Again Sam revolved around the Woody Allen Character. Allen even played the lead in the film version of the latter, and in other movies he consistently played himself or some version thereof...
...looks harmless--a small lump of colored fur with a tiny protruding lightbulb. But Hug a Light, stacked ten deep in the Jordan Marsh toy department, makes every child (four or older) a deity...