Word: slapstick
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THIS ARCHETYPAL quality, like the rest of the play, comes through tonight's Loeb Ex production beautifully. Occasionally Cindy Rosenwald, the director, seems to seek it explicitly--in a stylized slapstick quarrel between the governor's son's two frightened doctors, for example. But just as effectively, most of the time she lets it grow naturally out of the comedy of the play--in Grusha's marriage with a purportedly dying peasant, for instance, where the musicians have to play "something that could be either a subdued Wedding March or a spirited Funeral Dirge." Rosenwald even makes Grusha's flight...
...GRANDE DE Coca-Cola's attempts at humor draw on the ignorance of the Hondurans and the amateurish awkwardness of their performances. It is a series of malapropisms, mispronunciations, and slapstick--little of which is much above the level of a skit at an expensive summer camp. One of the biggest laughs comes when the emcee says "Mahsahss'-ah-shits" for Massachusetts. Unfortunately he repeats it another two times. The slapstick is on the same level. A blind blues singer walks into a wall. A drummer bangs his head on a cymbal while taking a bow. A favorite laugh-getter...
...Actors Company staging of Knots wraps an hour's worth of such vicious circular logic in music hall routines that include slapstick, songs, juggling, mime and dance. Ironically, the format runs into a Laingian knot or two. The words cannot satisfy the action, which in turn fails to satisfy the words. The reason is that Laing's knots are not truly Gordian but slip; what appears complex comes apart with a simple tug. This may even be the point, but it still leaves the actors-none of whom are Laurel or Hardy, or Gallagher & Shean-striving frantically...
...scene is funny, and Mostel is at his absurd best, the scene is just too long and gimmicky. O'Horgan's determination to make the play a conventional comedy ruins the scene. It's always fun to exploit Mostel's talent. But long comic scenes which rely on conventional slapstick devices and stock audience responses have no place in Theater of the Absurd. Slapstick comedy is part of the audience's comfortable and familiar world which Theater of the Absurd sets out to shatter...
...movie, which is divertingly diabolical, is the work of Pietro Germi, who once again (as in Divorce, Italian Style) makes social slapstick out of Italian law. Hoffman appears as a shy bank clerk whose beautiful wife (Stefania Sandrelli) floods him with killing affection. She is an embarrassment at the table, where she delights in sucking fish heads, and in bed, where she screams like an air-raid siren during orgasm. Months of this kind of married life, plus a hysterical pregnancy and intrusive in-laws, are enough to drive Hoffman into the arms of another woman (Carla Gravina). Hoffman...