Word: spiced
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...operetta, Iolanthe, brings nothing less than interracial marriage, capital punishment, and the class struggle into the stodgy chambers. Even more remarkably, it resolves these and other hefty issues in a mere two hours, all set a rapid-fire patter rhythm with a few love scenes tossed in to spice up the action. A little fairy magic sure does a lot for a body of government...
...suggest one mild change. The purists will never allow a change in the game. So spice up the coverage: throw Dick Vitale with Bud Collins behind the mike...
...best to manipulate the high jinks and high verbiage of this movie, his performance does not come anywhere near the stature of those of Cary Grant because his Charles has no Hepburn like counterpart with whom to share repartee and amorous tension. Without these basic ingredients, all the spice and sprinkle in the world cannot prevent this film from falling oddly flat...
Perhaps one reason for the dramatic effectiveness of the production is its use of an English translation of the libretto. The clear diction of the cast ensures that no word is lost, even in the larger ensembles. The translation itself lacks any particular spice, and at times seems to support the argument that there really just is more room for redundancy in languages we don't understand than in English...
...trite as the plot is, the main characters rescue it from oblivion. The trenchcoat-and-sunglass-clad, play-it-by-the-book Doug Chesnic is perfect contrast to the odd but kind Tess Carlisle. Several political references also spice up the dull script. Some are to past administrations, like when Tess says that all Agnew and Johnson ever did was play golf: "If was a blessing for the country." Others allude to Bill and Hillary. When Tess watches old news clips about her husband, the audience learns her Clinton-like history relatively painlessly. Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle met at Denison...