Word: stunt
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British playwright Alan Ayckbourn has long been the theater's champion daredevil, a man who never saw a stage stunt he wouldn't tackle. One of his early works, The Norman Conquests, was a cycle of three plays that recounted the events of a weekend from three different parts of the same house. One Ayckbourn play moves backward in time. Another conflates all the action in a house, from living room to attic, into a single stage space. His ingenious, nearly unstageable Intimate Exchanges has 16 permutations, depending on the choices made by characters at key points in the action...
Many in Burma's exile community rejected the regime's explanation for the release of Win Tin and a half dozen other political prisoners. "This is a publicity stunt, and the international community should not fall for it," said Soe Aung of the National Coalition of the Union of Burma, an alliance of exile groups. "If they were serious, they would release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi." He said the move was intended to relieve international pressure - and more importantly domestic discontent - over the junta's handling of the cyclone relief effort in which outside assistance...
Surely you remember that bit of masterful 20th-century propaganda? In 1966, Mao Zedong, the communist leader who united China and brought it back from the brink of ruin, famously swam the Yangtze. This stunt confounded the China hands and others who had believed that Mao was either dead - done in by his rivals - or dying of some illness, as had been rumored. (He was 73 after all.) But, no, the Leader was alive and astoundingly healthy: On a day in July, the Chairman appeared in his bathrobe on the riverbanks in Wuhan, accompanied by 5,000 young people...
...kind of punishment that won kudos for Lon Chaney and Paul Muni in the old days, and helped Robert De Niro to an Oscar in Raging Bull playing Jake LaMotta. (He got himself into fighting shape, then he gained a ton of weight! Acting!) Beyond the stunt aspect, Rourke does strong, sensitive work. All praise to him, and to Darren Aronofsky for casting the actor and directing him to turn a standard fiction into quirky, coherent behavior...
...younger ages than ever, and parents have proven willing to pay thousands of dollars for their daughters to participate on elite touring squads that compete year-round. The pressure can consume coaches, teams and families alike. In 2003, when Tiffani Bright broke her arm in two places during a stunt that went awry, the 15-year-old Oregonian and her parents' immediate concern was how to get her back cheering as quickly as possible. "As an orthopedic surgeon is explaining she'll have a metal plate in her arm for the rest of her life, we're asking...