Word: portrayal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...three representatives from Solidarity, three from the official unions and three from the Ministry of Labor and Wages. For 45 minutes, the panel discussed Solidarity's demands, from the five-day week to access to the national media to the farmers' union. The government presumably hoped to portray Solidarity as leading the country toward economic and social ruin, a point that official television commentators have begun to make regularly. If so, the ploy failed. At one point, to show that other countries worked on Saturdays, a government representative ineptly pointed out that French consumers could even buy cars...
Liberals are sure to portray some of the cuts, such as less generous unemployment compensation, as a heartless assault on the members of society who need help the most. Even those programs that seem eminently cuttable are vigorously defended by members of the "iron triangle" of federal spending: Government departments, special interest lobbyists and the staffs of congressional committees that pass on spending plans...
...hostages are released, the clergy's biggest problem will be to portray any compromise made with the U.S. as an unqualified victory for Iran. That could explain why Raja'i seemed to mix sugar-coated language with a bit of bile. He declared that once Iran's new message was in American hands, "the U.S. can decide how and when it wishes to take out its spies." The remark was interpreted as yet another threat that Tehran still had it in its power to try the hostages on espionage charges...
Simon's study of Mel's boredom bogs down by the second act, and Mel and Edna's quarreling begins to grate. Likewise, Simon is out of his league when he attempts to portray a nervous breakdown; as a result Achtman is forced to rely on a farcical style when Mel snaps. But if, in the end, he and McPhee don't possess the passion to enflame the big emotional speeches in some scenes, they make us care about Mel's and Edna's ups and downs, triumphs and hardships. And that's no small feat...
...worthwhile experiment; but on a double bill it undercuts its competition, turning its audience from theater-goers into listeners. Between the stern, subterranean gloom of the Requiem and the moral topology of The Seven Deadly Sins, the evening of theater becomes oppressive--more oppressive than necessary, even to portray Brecht's oppression-filled world...