Word: shtick
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...factor. Allen does a lot of psychological jokes, and the understanding that his analysis has afforded him into his own personality and into his relationship with his parents, friends and lovers is essential to a man who survives by the quality of his observations of people. Allen's whole shtick, simplified somewhat and ignoring to a degree the growth and development visible in Annie Hall and Interiors, is that of an awkward, clumsy, neurotic, unconfident, hapless little man who manages to maintain a sense of irony and self-awareness throughout his mishaps and setbacks. Even when he gets the woman...
King of Hearts has a lot of shtick, boundless energy, and in all probability a bright future. It's the kind of show many reviewers will hate, because of its flaws, but audiences will love it, because it's fun. And that's what musicals are all about. Give 'em the old razzle-dazzle and you'll leave 'em in the aisles, screaming for more, no matter what's going on outside the theater, back there in reality...
...piteous Sir Andrew, whose cough cannot conceal a basically pasty-faced visage. For him plant stalks are a snare, his nose a source of itching, he skin a meal for flies and mosquitoes. Moberly is amazingly inventive; he runs the risk of submerging Anddrew in a dictionary of shtick, but succeeds in making it all work. I do not recall ever seeing any of Shakespeare's peripheral comics played more engagingly...
...like deadpanned straight lines. Only once is Brooks himself very funny--in a scene with Kahn in which they dress and speak like an old Yiddishe couple in order to get past security cops at an airport-"Vattaya tink, ve smuggle dope in da celery?" Significantly, this bit of shtick reflects Brooks's earlier days as a Jewish comedian. The voice he uses in that scene is the same one he used as the 2000-Year-Old Man back in 1960. For all his attempts to change his patter, Brooks has to revert to his old stand...
...person, rather than the role, of Ravenal. She lends Eve assertive and wistful self-consciousness simultaneously. Hers is the only voice that distinguishes the musical score, with ample range and appealing tremolo. Still, she has her script to contend with and, as Adam remarks, husband-wife shtick inevitably prevails...