Word: tautly
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Machinal is not a play which keeps its audience always excited and interested. It slips sometimes into banality. Some scenes are ineffective. But Machinal does something far more important than provide entertainment. Sometimes it stretches taut the bare thread of its narrative, and like An American Tragedy it has moments which are so true that they are tragic. In these moments the disorderly processional of those who are born in pain to death in sorrow comes abruptly to have a frightening and enormous significance...
...little more. . " 'Al' Smith's façade, the grin, cocked derby and half-chewed cigar . . . has little to do with the sort of 'reality' one has in mind here. . . . Underneath ... is something else-something taut and eager, quickly sensitive; something that boils and struggles in there, that answers and leaps. Touch or pierce that roughneck façade, ever so lightly, and that other something starts, flames, comes leaping back. "There is about him a touch of that agelessness that goes with genius. . . . "... One gets an impression of exceptional force, of honesty, intelligence...
Suspense became taut as the Government presented their candidate for Speaker. He won by the narrow squeak of 230 to 228 and, for the time being, saved the Cabinet...
...satisfactory. Artist Poole had put the actress against a dark background, wrapped her in a black cape, painted her hands brown, thin and nervous. Her face looked out from all this gloom with the terror of a child's half-dream in the dark. Nonetheless, the characterization was too taut and theatrical...
Travel agencies justly emphasized the cultural values of voyage; might well have emphasized its benefits on mental health. Placid days, droning engines, cradling waves, roomy outlook?all these help to soothe troubled, taut spirits...