Word: paines
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Just, a Washington journalist in the early '60s, writes from experience. But there is no master clef to this roman. Axel reads like a composite rather than a copy. He has spent more than half his years in chronic pain caused by wounds suffered during World War II. His marriage to Sylvia, a wellborn New Yorker and poet, was a mismatch. "Government's the opiate of the patrician masses," she tells him shortly before walking out. Her parting shot is that Axel, former oss operative and friend of Presidents, has "too many secrets, not enough mystery...
Lincoln appears briefly in his theater seat in the balcony, but the subject of the play is the assassin, not the victim. Afterwards, the audience sees Booth curled up with a bottle of wine and an old blanket. His pain and confusion is almost pitiable, yet McNeely's performance was also chilling enough to make the audience feel guilty for sympathizing with an assassin. Juliene James '00 appears onstage with him as The Balladeer, a narrator of sorts who comments on and interacts with the characters, falling somewhere in between Jiminy Cricket and a Greek chorus. She cuts into Booth...
...material, arranging Parker's stories in a revue format that preserves their brief, self-contained style. But communicating the emotional content of Parker's work is a greater challenge, one which the performances at Agassiz Theater last weekend did not quite live up to. The fierce irony and underlying pain of Parker's stories were often lost in this production, which tried too hard to show the audience a good time...
...Waltz," worked particularly well, telling the story of a woman (Megan Uebelacker) who wishes she didn't have to dance with a particular suitor (Evan Sicuranza). As the music plays and couples swirl around the dance floor, the man repeatedly steps on her toes, and she denies any pain and takes all the blame. Uebelacker's asides to the audience are funny, but eventually it becomes clear that she is stuck in a courtship ritual and simply unable to breach the laws of a too-polite so ciety...
That's good, I guess; no pain, no gain. But can I twitch through six more weeks of virtuous nibbling and meditation and moderate behavior? Will enlightenment and serenity finally make clear to me the meaning of "antioxidant"? One thing is sure: only the strong survive...