Word: miser
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...deeply ironic, actually, that Shakespeare chooses to cast his antagonist in the stereotypical role of the miser. As the play progresses, we see the stereotype reflected onto its creators as money reveals itself to be the foundation for their actions. Antonio's friendship with Bassanio is the relationship between benefactor and courtesan. Bassanio's love for Portia is linked to the fortune she will bring him, and even the marriage between Bassanio's man Gratiano and Portia's maid Nerissa (Catherine Crow HGSE '99) is contingent upon their employers' financial union. The Christians themselves embody the gross materialism they condemn...
Like King Midas, George Soros has the golden touch. But unlike the miser of mythology, he is happy to part with his wealth. A latter-day Robin Hood, he takes from the exchequers and pockets of the rich West in order to provide much needed capital for the poor East. After the sterling coup, Soros wasted no time in redistributing the spoils: within the next three months he set up a $100 million fund to support science in the former Soviet Union, organized a $25 million loan to Macedonia and then made the largest single private donation ever...
...MISER. Philip Bosco does everything one could ask in the title role of Moliere's satire, except the indispensable: lurch into believable love-struck madness when his cherished cashbox is stolen. Other actors in this Broadway revival swoop and flutter and generally diminish the text, save for splendidly real and moving bits by John Christopher Jones as a long-suffering servant and Adam Redfield as a splenetic...
...complete lack of subtlety and taste. At the length of a good ghost story, he is amusing and enjoyable with spooky stuff about, for example, an airliner, most of whose passengers disappear as it flies, leaving behind (wow!) their tooth fillings and pacemakers; and a well-sketched village miser who steals a Polaroid camera that obstinately produces shots of (eek!) a savage...