Word: phillipics
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Williams plays Professor Phillip Brainard, a brilliant but easily distracted college professor. In fact, Brainard is so forgetful that he seems almost impaired: he has twice left his fiancee (Marcia Gay Harden) stranded at the altar because he neglected the wedding. The scenario is a difficult one to swallow, but Flubber tries its hardest to create an alternative reality. Brainard doesn't mean any harm in his absent-mindedness--he's simply too darn busy working on his green blob...
...undeniable influence and connection with events far afield and how they affect the basic relationship between husband and wife lies at the heart of the work. Atrocity on a national scale is mirrored by emotional aggression on a domestic scale, as Phillip'sa frustration, hostile for all its blindness, seethes at something that can't be explained or denied. Suspicions and confusion arise as if muddled foreign policy with the involvement of an equestrian doctor (Zachary Shrier '99) whose "unconventional" methods include all too casual relations with the patent...
Similarly, Kellerman's Phillip might well be someone you'd figure on bumping into if you zipped back a few years a la Time and Again. Kellerman's marvelously expressive face and heavy carriage capture perfectly the psychological and economic burden: you get the sense he's wearing a lead coat. He's perhaps matched only by the personality of Shohet's face, but he works his to greater advantage...
...detective bit comes in, therefore, as we are faced with stringing together the characters, who seem to exist in independent bubbles--very well-acted bubbles, but bubbles nonetheless. Phillip throws Sylvia to the ground, but he starts just--just--a little to early, and the moment is off. Some pauses adopt an almost film noirish mystery, instead of magnifying emotion...
...mole like searching head and wide eyes cast light on the otherwise dour proceedings, while providing a kind of insider's guide to the marriage. At the same time, though, even Kurshan acquires a police-witness-feel in her casual chat with a gumshoe Hyman. Young Lee '99, as Phillip's boss whose pet project is adding a spiffy annex to the New York Harvard Club, reaches similar comic heights with dead-on self-importance but, too, flounders when trying to tap into the play's underlying texture...