Word: realisms
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...equally rapid change of tactics behind each line. Glengarry Glen Ross follows in the playwright's tradition of plays such as Sexual Perversity in Chicago and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Buffalo, famous for the fast-paced, in-your-face language that Mamet prefers to call "poetry" rather than realism. Ruiz directs his cast according to Mamet's concept of "practical aesthetics," which emphasizes intention and reaction. The actor's mind must work quickly, switching from one tactic to another in order to get what he wants. Although there are moments where the actors seem to lose the freshness...
When it comes to viewing any Gilbert and Sullivan production, it is essential not to take the proceedings too seriously. If you're out for a night of stark realism or harrowing psychological drama, engagements in town will better suit your palate. Such qualities are mercifully absent in the entire cycle of works that have come from two eminent gentlemen of British theater. Not an exception is this year's Gilbert and Sullivan Players' production of HMS Pinafore, which, in fierce (yet of course gentlemanly) competition with The Pirates of Penzance, is among the most beloved of the repertoire...
...give out little golden statues in America. It should come as no surprise that Rosetta, this year's controversial winner of the Palm, is being released in the US with little fanfare, and probably to a limited run. It's a shame because films like this--ones with gritty realism, superb acting and the emotional impact of a punch to the gut--don't come along often. Power and pathos infiltrates a simple story of a young girl trying to attain the most basic of institutions, employment...
Though well mounted by director Scott Ellis, this 1954 play hasn't held up as well as the superficially similar work of William Inge, in which the poetry seems to emerge more naturally out of the front-porch realism. But it does provide a platform for an impressive Broadway debut by film and TV star Woody Harrelson. Instead of the larger-than-life hamminess that Burt Lancaster brought to the role on film, Harrelson has a bantamweight's charm and easy physicality (at one point he does a handstand onstage). You can almost, but not quite, believe he'd fall...
...denne brothers turn it into tragedy and transcendence. But this dour, powerful film might be just an anecdote without Dequenne, 18. She invests Rosetta with the weird ferocity of an alien creature: a wild angel or a madwoman. This novice actress's task--finding the shading of realism in what could be a cartoon of misery--is made all the more harrowing by the film's intense, handheld scrutiny of her face in almost every shot. The purity of Dequenne's performance inspires awe. To a grubby life she brings dignity, clarity, passion, glory...