Word: realism
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Mice and Men" is the kind of play which makes erstwhile adamant lovers of realism break ground and run for the affectionate softnesses of rosy romanticism. Some have termed it "a poetic idyll," some "stark" or "tragic" or "harrowing" or have used infinite combinations of all these terms. Whatever its effect on individuals, the play tells the story of Lennie, a monstrous halfwit, who absent-mindedly crushes the life out of small rodents because he likes to feel their fur; before the final act has run its macabre course, Lennie has so perfected the fine art of strong arm caressing...
John Steinbeck's play appeared on Broadway in November of 1937 and promptly won the Critics Circle prize. To see it is an imperative theatrical errand if only to gain some understanding of the impressive heights to which a gifted handling of realism can raise an exceedingly fictional theme...
...Realism. M. Daladier's trip was not entirely spent in mere ceremonial. Tanks, artillery and soldiers were displayed for Tunisia's-and Italy's-benefit. Two hundred eighty miles southeast of Tunis and 65 miles from the Italian-held Libyan frontier is France's desert Maginot Line of barbed wire, small forts and pillboxes buried in sand dunes...
...sorrow. After mixing Grandma's outrageous antics with her son-in-law's gruesome suicide and her granddaughter's rocky romance, The Primrose Path fails to come off as well as it might. For, though humor and pathos make the best of friends, realism and farce are immemorial foes...
Although it includes no outstanding dramatic triumphs and is possessed of no extraordinary artistic merits, "The Young in Heart" provides good entertainment. This is probably because of its pleasant lack of realism in both plot and presentation. The story, which concerns an engaging family of rogues and social parasites who are reformed to solid citizenship by the love of a Little Old Lady, is one of those amusing fairy-tales which adults like to believe...