Word: underplaying
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...characters underplay too far. Isenberg in the role of Viola leaves a bit too much to the script. Hailed by other characters as vivid, brilliant, sensitive, this Viola does little but throw up her hands in despair as she is mistaken for her brother, attacked by Toby and Aguecheek, adored and insulted, and made a pawn of. The play's grand denouement scene falls prey to this gradual slowing of pace, seeming just a bit too serene as a set of twins and two pairs of lovers are reunited...
Michael Cantor has chosen to underplay Astrov, delivering his lines in a folksy singsong while shaking his head and making perfunctory gestures like a small-town defense attorney, or, for that matter, our next president. This anti-declamatory approach works well from time to time, and some of Cantor's readings display wit and intelligence. But it also allows him to skip lightly over the surface of the part, taking at face value Astrov's assertion that he can no longer feel anything. Astrov feels things very deeply--his preoccupation with animals and the forests reveals a profound humanitarian urge...
...prem ise: two guys dress as women to secure lodging in an all-girl hotel. Some Like It Hot this is not, and some of the jokes are more than nine days old. But there is promise here: the young stars, Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari, know when to underplay a line and when to run with it. If Thompson and Zwick can find inventive ways to extend this single-joke situation, Bosom Buddies could be worth watching...
...form a government, the Japanese public got a fascinating glimpse of the depth and breadth of political divisions within the LDP and the potential obstructiveness of the system. As the faction leaders jousted, it became clear that behind their hatred lies an issue the LDP has desperately tried to underplay: the role of corruption in the Japanese political system...
...through the night to map a strategy for dealing with the crisis. School Superintendent Samuel Stewart realized that he had two options: he could react dramatically to the community's grief by canceling classes, holding a school assembly or undertaking some other large new program, or he could underplay the deaths for fear that such public activity might trigger more suicides...