Word: monologist
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...book filled with such inveterate egotists as the Carver clan ought not to be much fun. Yet A Summons to Memphis radiates tolerant good humor. For all of Phillip's flaws, he is a keen observer, witty monologist and an adept at anecdotes. He recalls, for example, the fate of another old Memphis widower who attempted to take a second wife: "When Mr. Joel's intention to remarry was made manifest he was actually hauled into court by his own children. (His sons were all lawyers, unhappily for him.) And there in court . . . Mr. Joel's sons had their father...
...fact, what he called his old Oxford neighbor [J.R.R.] Tolkien (whose books he refused to read ...), a 'monologist.' He would listen to whatever anyone had to say-although when he was especially wrapped up in his work ... he could not always absorb the sense of what was said ... During this period he got as hopelessly absent-minded as he ever has been ... When he was doing chores he would be thinking about the work ... Once when laying the table he put down knife, fork and glass for [his character] Sergeant Lamb. He did not do this, however...
DIED. Cornelia Otis Skinner, 78, gifted monologist, actress and humorist; of a stroke; in New York City. Cornelia was weaned on her actor father's renditions of Shakespeare, and made her Broadway debut with him in 1921. Too tall and gawky to play ingenues, she built her stage career slowly, tirelessly touring the U.S. heartlands and Britain in monodramas she wrote and staged herself. Her self-deprecating humor and satirical wit found an outlet in light verse and anecdotal magazine pieces, plays and books, the best known of which was her 1942 travelogue, Our Hearts Were Young...
...features have great plasticity. His friend Candice Bergen speaks of his "cobra eyes." His energy level can vary with the most careful calibration. His two best roles-as Bobby Dupea, the thwarted concert pianist in Five Easy Pieces (1970) and David Staebler, the self-consumed and self-deceived radio monologist hi The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)-are shaded with anxiety, shaped with a muted force...
Lemon Sky is an indifferent sample of the genre, possibly because it comes mainly from Playwright Lanford Wilson's larynx. His hero, Alan, is a compulsive monologist who alternates between flip quips and narcissistic arias of self-pity. The interspersing of frequent asides and stream-of-consciousness speeches creates the undramatic effect of a man too busy commenting on his life to live it. As Alan, Christopher Walken handles these technical devices with an admirable fluidity, and makes the boy more humanly vulnerable than his words. In the hiss-the-father department, Charles Durning fashions an equally well-shaded...