Word: shadows
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Byron should provide a jaded foil to Bysshe's youthful ardor; he needs to exhibit at least the shadow of his past energy so that the audience can glimpse the man who said, "What I earn my brains I spend by my bollocks." His caustic, irreverent lines carry Rigby a long way, but they can't make up for his ennervated delivery and static physical presence. Instead of dominating the stage as he should, Rigby leaves a vacuum...
Shea has a stronger voice and a more compelling stage presence. When he is not cowering in Byron's shadow, he delivers his monologues with feverish intensity. He is especially impressive in his final monologue, in which he recites a chaos of fragments from his poems, counting out the meter on his fingers...
...TITLE: SHADOW PLAY...
...Shadow Play is definitely corilineal. Baxter's setting is conventional small-town America, but his scenes are as eerie as the realism of Edward Hopper paintings. Five Oaks is a town where history no longer takes root. Industry is elsewhere. Spirits too have up and gone. People have dusty backgrounds and odd occupations. A Palmer neighbor is a retired airline dietitian; a young woman describes herself as a Con-Tact-paper decorator...
...budgeted for evil, but neither has he made a classic Faustian bargain. How could he? In a universe where God is only curious, the devil is certainly bored, at least with Five Oaks. To convey this sense of abandonment and emptiness without losing the reader is not easy. Shadow Play could have turned into another clever existential dead end. But Baxter fills the void with a hundred human touches, a style as intimate as chamber music, and a hero who rouses himself to reject the banality that hoohah happens...