Word: winterset
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Things are often said to be just like Greek tragedies, but "Winterset" really is. One vast web of highly improbable coincidence is woven so elaborately and so ingeniously that terrified suspense bangs on the turn of each ironical development. Ghastly irony is this drama's most lethal weapon, and it is called into play so effectively and so frequently that the unhappy spectator is harrowed sick. A forlorn halfwit, for example, driven out of his warm shelter by the gangster villain, picks up a cigarette butt discarded by that villain, and by lighting it unconsciously gives a signal that draws...
...themes "presented in conventional forms," plots that "took no account of the terms of actuality," and language that "soared on poetic wings." Mr. Nicoll points out that the trend has been toward naturalistic plays, but that it is a trend with no future. He considers that Maxwell Anderson's "Winterset" fulfills his requirements for the stage: it "aims at building a dramatic poetry out of common expression." Yet, in the theatre, a spectator unacquainted with the text would not be aware of any remarkable differences between "Winter-set" and other good plays in the naturalistic tradition. Black verse seems...
...crabwise around the exhibit's two rooms, gallery-goers noted that Etcher Young skilfully shows his snow in three varieties: 1) wet, soft and falling; 2) powdery, windblown; 3) frozen. Like all good etchers Artist Young was able to make pleasing esthetic capital of his bare, black trees, winterset in the tranquil snowscapes. Contrasted were plates from the conventional etcher's portfolio of boats, birds, shorelines, woodland vistas...
...York "Parnell" has been brought to the Shubert Theatre as the last of this year's series of drama offerings by the Theatre Guild in connection with the American Theatre Society. Maintaining the high level of artistic achievement attained by such previous members of the series as "Winterset," "Porgy and Bess" and "The Taming of the Shrew" it provides a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a long and varied theatrical season...
...theatre by framing it in what he calls verse but which might more aptly be characterized as cadenced prose. Reactions to this device have been various and it is impossible from this example to judge of the possibilities of the verse technique in the modern drama. The verse of "Winterset" is not outstanding verse; its images are tired and unsatisfactorily Biblical. Mr. Anderson has attempted the epic and if he has fallen short of his goal he has certainly achieved a stimulating work of impressive stature...