Word: overwrought
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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ELVIS COSTELLO • When I Was Cruel (Island) Elvis Costello, lost for the last decade or more in a quagmire of overwrought pretensions and ill-suited collaborations has finally returned to form—and how. When I Was Cruel is the true successor to such Costello classics as This Years Model and Armed Forces. “45,” the first track, could have been an outtake from the latter. Candy-coated organs and big drums abound on this record alongside the trademark rhythmic tics for which Costello is so highly regarded. Never has neurosis...
With such a melodramatic piece, the principals face the potential of delivering overwrought performances. To their credit, though, the dancers remain steadfastly earnest. The result is powerful. Audiences see the real pain of Giselle and the deep regret of Count Albrecht...
Love’s Fire is a collection of short plays that take their basis from Shakespearean sonnets. Some scenes are quite successful, while others, like the overwrought first piece, are less cohesive...
...feedback pathway for students to not-so-discreetly air their grievances. The nature of the show provides a relatively anonymous barrier between the Faculty being skewered and the underlings doing the skewering, so that small (and even not-so-small) grievances can be aired in the most blatant and overwrought manner imaginable, primarily through puppet caricature, for laughs. Thus grievances are identified, magnified and laughed at before they are able to create real and significant resentment, and the department is alerted to the most salient shortcomings that grad students perceive both in their education and in the atmosphere...
...week, says editor Robert Siegel, it will address the events carefully, aiming for a poignant, "cathartic" humor. Stewart also laced his aching monologue with touchingly self-deprecating jokes. "I'm sorry to do this to you," he said on his return. "It's another entertainment show beginning with the overwrought speech of a shaken host...