Word: undercuttings
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Given the obstacles the script presents, this in itself is a commendable effort. Though the play does purport to concern itself with the plight of Miss Julie (Andrea Dishy) and her servant (Dean Norris), its heavily Marxist language and tone often undercut the development of the characters as individuals. Moreover, while many of Strindberg's speeches are poetic and inspirational, much of the script is repetitious. The virtual absence of any physical action, coupled with a cast of only three characters, makes for a dangerously static 90 minutes if director and cast aren't careful...
CAPLAN, reading the fine print and the fictitious rhetoric, cries foul. He is quick to recognize that the attempt, however fashionable, to undercut a defendant's individual rights in the name of "security" or societal rights is at best self-defeating and at worst dangerous...
...giving the Soviets a monopoly in a whole category of weapons--modern land-based, intermediate-range ballistic missiles--the SS-20 created the perceived gap at the level of theater nuclear forces, or INF, in the 'continuum,' or 'spectrum,' of deterrence. It thus undercut the credibility of American doctrine for the defense of Europe...
...quarantine would be a legitimate response to the establishment of a Soviet or Cuban military base in Nicaragua, and then only as an "option" to be used in consultation with U.S. allies in the region. But the hedges, and his frequent reliance on aides for clarification, only served to undercut his charge that Reagan is "essentially absent" from the formation of U.S. foreign policy...
...academia are often overly-harsh, often to the point of sounding adolescent. Though Wilson stops short of raging an outright attack on authority and its preceptors, his picture of religion and scholasticism is notably unsympathetic. Potential "heroes" are either washed up and disillusioned by their own insight, or undercut their own good intentions with overbearing concern...