Word: martyrdom
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...screamed in dead earnest. After foam extinguishers doused the blaze, Jean, luckily only singed, was carried off by a studio cop and a hooded executioner from the cast. Later, through her ointment, Jean, only a year or so out of bobby-sox, offered a thoroughly unsaintly version of her martyrdom: "I smell like a singed chicken. At first, I didn't know what was happening. Then I felt myself going pffft...
...Bernanos plot is based on the historical martyrdom of 16 Carmelite nuns during the revolutionary terror in Paris in 1789. The opera follows the spiritual struggles of a young noblewoman, Blanche de la Force, who has joined a Carmelite convent in Compiègne on the eve of the Revolution. Weak and fearful at first, she gradually gains spiritual strength. In a strange contrast, it is the doughty Mother Superior who dies in fear, while the once cowardly Blanche dies a glorious martyr's death; she twice spurns a chance to escape and, with other Carmelites, goes serenely...
Like many of the new plays which the Poets' Theatre has presented, Murrey Hargrove's The Martyrdom of Roy Wilson suffers from a lack of discipline and craftsmanship which is only redeemed by talented direction, acting, and technics. If not original in concept, it is at least original in its attempt to force normal speech patterns and language into a poetic form. The script occasionally rises to real eloquence, but more often it is tawdry and indulges in the most egregious bad taste. Mr. Hargrove's use of profanity is completely gratuitous, like a small boy swearing before his parents...
...Martyrdom involves a young man who has to work in the warehouse of a biscuit factory to support his wife and child, yet has the burning desire to be a motorcycle racer. He is the eternal figure with little talents who feels that he has a mission to do great things. "Isn't there a circle around my name?" he asks. The world that Mr. Hargrove paints in Memphis, Tennessee is sordid, phoney, materialistic. Yet the reason why the play fails is that Roy Wilson is no better than the world that he rebels against. His "martyrdom" is meaningless beyond...
...Hargrove's play is a thoughtful and sincere experiment, for all its weakness of organization and possible triteness of theme. The Martyrdom of Roy Wilson doesn't quite make the grade as great folk drama, but its vitality, and the fresh enthusiasm of the Poets' Theatre production compensate at least in part for its weakness...