Word: vocalism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...debate naively: he began and ended his book with provocative chapters (the first was entitled "The Morality of the Gene") in which he speculated on altruism, religion and ethical principles. but the ideas he presented were not as radical as the response to them would indicate. The reaction was vocal because taking a middle-ground position in the controversy offers no safe harbor. When Wilson writes, with self-conscious moderation, "The evidence is strong that almost all differences between human societies are based on learning and social conditioning rather than heredity. And yet perhaps not quite all...," he leaves himself...
...project either innocence or perversity; there is a lot of mugging and a lot of whining, a lot of effort but almost no success. Physically, she is virtually inert, although she seems graceful next to her leading man, Frederick Neumann. Neumann does wonderful things with his voice, and his vocal virtuosity is put to good use by Breuer; but the voice seems like an incubus that is very, very unhappy with the body it has fallen into. And Neumann seems a little confused by the production--he plays it very much as an actor, bantering, for example, with the technical...
Late in his career, Announcer Bill Stern made an endearing confession about his vocal ways as the Christopher Columbus of television sportscasting. Said he: "I had no idea when to keep my big, fat, flapping mouth shut." The insight dawned too late to be of much use to Stern, but it might have been of value as a guide for his heirs. Unfortunately, nobody in the broadcast booth was listening. The result is the TV sports event as it is today: an entertainment genre in which an athletic game must compete for attention with the convulsive concatenations of blah-blah...
Ellen Greene's performance as Anna 1 is critical to the communicative power of the production: her clear enunciation and vocal power keep the words from getting lost in the bustle on stage. But she lacks the vocal or emotional resources to prevent her voice from becoming monotonous at times. I missed Carmen de Lavallade's Anna II (she is injured but expected to return to the show), but Julie Ince's performance in the role--which requires a sort of supine acceptance of the world, with vague but unquenchable rebellions continually flaring up--was only passively effective. Her dancing...
...three singers on a dark stage instead of at the front of a concert hall. The performance of the songs by Robert Honeysucker, David Ripley and Kim Scown is remarkably emotional for such somber music, and Honeysucker especially in the "Second Report on the Unknown Soldier" creates an affecting vocal performance with no need of a set of other theatrical assistance...