Word: slapsticker
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Despite these faults, last weekend's performance could not completely destroy Gilbert and Sullivan's lyrics and music. Gilbert's quick-witted criticisms of the arbitrary English caste system--as well as some of the slapstick humor added by director Matt Buchanan--made the audience laugh...
...Gypsy, a slapstick but chilling portrait of the ultimate stage mother, faithfully evokes the original Jerome Robbins production, including, alas, the cutesy, numbers-strung-together Arthur Laurents libretto. If Daly cannot quite dislodge from memory the performances of Ethel Merman and Angela Lansbury, particularly not as a singer, she rivals them as a force of nature. Coarse, thoughtless, unscrupulous and fierce, her Mama Rose is nonetheless just likable enough to explain why two daughters and a surrogate husband stick around so long and forgive so much. Among supporting players, only Jonathan Hadary, as Rose's agent and lover, excels...
...Slapstick, slide rule...
Despite the sophistication that underlay her slapstick and the respect she commanded as the first woman to head a studio, Desilu Productions, Ball said she saw herself as "not an idea girl but a doer." Like the silent comedians she studied (Buster Keaton, her onetime office mate at MGM, taught her how to handle props) and impersonated (her mirror-image confrontation with Harpo Marx and her Chaplin homage were priceless), Ball rehearsed every sequence obsessively. Yet when the cameras were rolling she made each gesture look spontaneous, each wisecrack seem an ad lib. Memorably, Lucy and her sidekick Ethel Mertz...
...time this three-hour flight of fancy floats into its finale--complete with a duel and the usual matchmaking--the audience is more than ready to get off the plane. The ungainly plot and romantic leads nearly sink the fantastic minor players and amusing slapstick comedy. In the end, though, the levity and enthusiasm pull through and keep the show from crashing...