Word: nees
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shirley Bradshaw, nee Valentine, could be a bit of a bore, and a one-woman play about her could degenerate into a dutiful journey through familiar terrain in the regions of feminist anger and mid-life crisis. But the beguiling comedy by Willy Russell (Educating Rita) that opened on Broadway last week has three invaluable things going for it: an unflagging sense of humor; an authenticity of language and logic that keeps the central character's conversation from ever turning into stand-up comedy or sermonette; and, foremost, a hugely likable performance by Pauline Collins (Upstairs, Downstairs...
...John Updike. The scarlet letter on the dust jacket stands for Sarah Worth (nee Price), a wayward Massachusetts wife who runs off to an Indian guru's ashram in Arizona. Her messages home are consistently, if unconsciously, hilarious...
...Benny. It was for the Benny show that he regularly played a polar bear, an antique car, a "Union Depot train caller" ("Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc . . . amonga!"), a parrot, a Mexican ("What's your name?" "Sy." "Sy?" "Si"), and the choleric Professor LeBlanc, Jack's violin teacher: "Meester Be-nee, could I have some water, please?" "Water? Yes. There's some in the cooler down the hall." "That ees not enough. I would like to drown myself...
...heart attack, Paulie sets aside her resolve -- until she uncovers his passing liaison with a would-be Mme. de Pompadour of the shopping malls. That propels her into New York City, where Son Jason, a punk-rock musician who lives in a Bronx tenement, and his pregnant girlfriend Flame, nee Sara, add to the imbroglio. But, after all manner of marital peccadilloes, Wolitzer (In the Palomar Arms) spins her fifth novel into a bittersweet tribute as the Flaxes finally celebrate their anniversary. "We waltzed around the perimeters of the living room," Paulie recalls, "the winners in an arduous marathon dance...
Ogene Davis of Atlanta faithfully attended a black church through high school but became deeply troubled that "good" Christians could tolerate a socially and racially unjust world. "Christianity was not working for blacks," he concluded. Karima Omar Kamouneh (nee Virginia Marston) of Burbank, Calif., was raised by devout Episcopalians but felt plausibility was somehow lacking. "I had milked everything out of Christianity, and it still didn't make sense," she relates. Dawud Wong Chun, a Chinese American in Brooklyn, says simply that he thirsted for a "pious, virtuous, fruitful life...