Word: slapstick
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Shakespeare, who laced his plays with big fight scenes, multiple murders, romantic bantering and plenty of slapstick, was an ace screenwriter. Occasionally the movies have realized this and allowed distinguished actors to put one of his plays on film. Problem is that by the time they receive this reward for services rendered, it may as well be a gold watch. When MGM made Romeo and Juliet in 1936, it cast Leslie Howard, 43, and Norma Shearer, 36, as the star-crossed teens. Laurence Olivier brought sepulchral dash to his Hamlet, but at 41 he was a bit too mature...
Even if you don't follow the production's deeper meaning, Ross Benjamin's excellent direction provides for laughter, tension and release at more immediate levels. Making "symbolic," often frustrating dialogue accessible to the audience, Benjamin includes many episodes of welltimed, appropriate slapstick that bring the audience to laughter in the midst of this grim play. When the main characters begin their picnic, Frank eats barbarically while Ernest carefully slices his hot dog; as time goes on, Ernest begins to spit out hot dog chunks just as disgustingly as Frank. Ernest's long hair gradually falls out of his ponytail...
...only one lacking conviction. The production never engages fully with the play. In the comic scens, instead of cracking Shakespeare,s jokes, the actors parody themselves by sending up the obscure language of the humor. Alfred Divenuti, as the pimp Lucio, gradually surrenders his creative characterization in favor of slapstick hamming. The prostitute Pmopey (Jessica Viertel) decides to make a joke out of her delivery, apparently because she doesn't know how to make the jokes themselves...
Forget the word circus; it conjures up nothing more magical than slapstick and animal odors. The grand, ethereal Cirque du Soleil is really primal theater -- an age-old blend of music and motion. The weirdly soothing, polylingual background score, which could be elevator music at a harmonious U.N., rolls out a verdant carpet of sound for all the pretty beasts to strut on. At every moment, in every corner of the Cirque world, stagecraft approaches genial witchcraft. It's an out-of-Broadway experience...
Nothing lends itself to Rossini's tidal score more than a story of comic abduction, spousal warfare, anachronistic feminism and subtle slapstick. In this opera, one Bey of Algiers, Mustafa, seeks to rid himself of his dull wife. Elvira and replace her with the kidnapped Isabella, an Italian femme fatale. Enter Lindoro, a hapless Italian slave who just happens to be the lover of Isabella. With the cooperation of an unlucky suitor and the assistance of Elvira, Isabella and Lindoro escape to Italy together by means of an outragerous contrivance, leaving Mustafa and Elvira reunited...