Word: refract
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AMERICA HURRAH. Three brilliant playlets by Jean-Claude van Itallie refract and reflect some of the dominant hues in mid-20th century American life...
...Foot on the Gas. Strong images refract strong emotions. Voznesensky is wildly excited by "godless/ baseball-crazy/ gasoline-hazy/ America!" A passionate patriot, he is also a ferocious critic of Communism. In a horrendous poem printed in 1963, he likens the relation between the Russians and their rulers to that between Peter the Great and one of his mistresses. Having cut off the poor wench's head, the czar snatched it up again by the hair and then, according to eyewitnesses, kissed the bloody carrion passionately on the lips. Unlike Evtushenko, however, Voznesensky is not primarily a political poet...
...this unsavory fun house of horrors, Playwright Orton tries to refract he face of evil from the distorting mirrors of the humanly grotesque, but us talents run more to seamy documentation than satirical savagery. He can be witty: "To be present at the conception is all that a reasonable child can expect of his father...
Some optical ghosts are common: the ordinary mirages which nearly everyone has seen. Commonest of all is "water-in-the-road," which is caused by a thin layer of warm air above sun-heated pavement. The two layers (cold and dense above, hot and less dense below) "refract"* upward the light that reaches them from the distant sky. A motorist sees shining water (really sky) lying in the road. In hot deserts this sort of mirage is extremely deceptive...