Word: magical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some go for the companionship of the trail--the shared water bottles, the rising and falling of feet in tandem, the magic of a solitary campfire on a dark and starry night. Some go for the splendor of the territory--the congregation of peaks in robes of snow and light, the intense blue sky and deep blue lakes, the high-piled clouds trailing their shadows across the mountains. Still others go for the adventure--the challenge of the unknown, the icy slopes, the dangerous climbs...
...much. She depends on a ripe, sometimes overripe, prose style to create atmospheres in which strange things are possible. The Caribbean, with its buried history of slave trade and uprisings, its lingering essense of negritude, is a good stage. Morrison attempts to evoke island life with touches of the magic realism that made Song of Solomon so successful. It does not quite work in Tar Baby. In fact, the strongest sense of place is conveyed in a scene set in New York City, where the author is an editor for a leading publishing firm. -By R.Z. Sheppard
...that says "Drunkard" draped around his neck--this is the tale of a decent, confused lad, whose body is "a tent of exile" from society. Scolded by his mother for his idleness. Aladdin is dispatched by a wicked magician to an enchanted cave, where he is to fetch a magic lamp. Aladdin winds up hanging onto the lamp, using its genie to help win the hand of a Sultan's beautiful daughter. The magician, of course, steals the lamp, along with the Princess...
...guess, is how you'd describe her. She comes equipped with an ingeni(e)ous echo, a snotty little girl's voice placed piercingly over the audience. Most of the other special effects have a deliberately plodding quality: the magician is lowered--haltingly--from the splashy proscenium on a "magic carpet"; an actor stands on a platform that is then turned round and round by other actors to indicate movement through space or disorientation; a charmingly flustered little girl (Tamsy Johnson) removes her ape head at the end of the show and recites--haltingly--a speech about...
...time rehearsing his actors, but--hell--I can sympathize with slow, thoughtful writers--this review was scheduled to run yesterday. Though the production is untidy and the play unfinished (Mayer might fill out his protagonist and tighten in particular the first act). Aladdin is an exhilarating reminder that theatrical magic is most wondrous when it is achieved without tricks...