Word: show-off
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...said so. One reason was that the column that started as a paid ad in the New York Daily News (TIME, June 24, 1946) had spread into 400 daily and 2,000 weekly newspapers and was netting Rose about $3,500 a week. Another reason was "an old show-off like me doesn't like to leave the stage with that big an audience in the house." But the tough little showman, who has been sandwiching his writing in between running his nightclub and theater, finally learned what every good columnist knows: that turning out a column three times...
...Show-Off (by George Kelly; produced by David Heilweil & Derrick Lynn-Thomas) revives on Broadway an old favorite of the '20s, while familiarizing Broadway with a new favorite of the provinces-theater-in-the-round. Both the play and the production have drawbacks, but both come off pleasantly enough. Performed on an arena-like stage with the audience at its elbow and on all four sides, Broadway's theater-in-the-round at times resembles theater-in-the-rough. But the illusion of life is quite as strong as with orthodox staging; what is diminished is the illusion...
Playwright Kelly's famous portrait of a braggart is still an amusing one. If The Show-Off seems protracted now, it seemed already diluted in 1924, for in an earlier and more brilliant form it was a vaudeville sketch. But its best bits are among the funniest of all tilting at windbags. The strutting $32.50-a-week clerk, who is neither cowed by the law he flouts nor squelched by the mother-in-law he infuriates, is most alive when most farcical. Lee Tracy plays him with noisy but un-brutal gusto, making him far more ham than horror...
...satire on lower-middle-class family life, The Show-Off is still reasonably entertaining, even though worn and familiar. There is a decided period flavor to The Show-Off; yet the personal flavor of George Kelly is anything but faint...
Everyone can recognize the show-off. He is found in clusters, and his natural habitat is the college campus. He enjoys the raccoon coat, the letter sweater, and the old rat-eaten loafers. A battered hat usually adorns his head, and his tie is better hidden than displayed, as it either depicts lewd scenes, or squirts water at unlucky admirers...