Word: plot
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Assassination Plot. Thomas tells this startling tale with style through the journals of one Lovatt Frazier, a young Highlander who is wounded at Quebec, and then in Virginia joins Prince Charlie's court. Frazier has a gift for language ("Colonel Byrd, a man of vast parade") and a sharp eye for cracks in fine facades ("It seems that Mr. Randolph would declare for King James if only the King would then make nun comfortable in the office of attorney general"). The diarist, it develops, had the rare good luck to overhear a hitherto unrecorded conversation between Colonel George Washington...
Happy Days, with only one genuine character and no plot to speak of, is Beckett's most theatrically difficult full-length play. It opened in New York in 1961 and closed after only a half-month's run. Since that time performing groups have shied away from it, opting instead for the more popular and more stylized Waiting for Godot. The Harvard Summer School Repertory Theater, which has been ambitious in its undertakings all season long, has taken up the challenge of putting on a dramatically successful Happy Days, and the effort--while admirable--isn't all that exciting...
...quasi-historical movie "Love and Anarchy" aims a lopsided shot at two rather grand targets, and barely grazes its mark. Several strong, spirited scenes create atmosphere on the fringes of the story, but Wertmuller lacks the incisive directing to quicken her abstract themes and rescue them from a trite plot and a nearly catatonic hero...
...This plot seems more aptly suited for comedy and is inadequate to convey any political messages Wertmuller intended. Her material is simple and scant, for the dim-witted peasant has no ideological beliefs to articulate and a thick blanket of fear stifles his emotions. Except for one drunken outburst and a wild frenzy at the end, his eyes are expressionless, with pupils the size of pinpoints...
...whole bunch of other things, plays at the Loeb until the end of the week. By applying Shaw's notion of "vital life forces" to stage craft, the Summer School Repertory manages to turn this windy bit of social farce into an amusing bit of entertainment. The plot, about an underwear manufacturer and a Polish acrobat who falls through the roof (sounds like an old Marx Brothers routine: "I watched a Polish lady fall through my roof in my underwear, but I don't know how she got in my underwear"), is very confusing and after a while...