Word: witlessness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...French; and a pantomime, Baptiste, requiring no French at all. A mannered 18th-century mixup, Les Fausses Confidences was all ambitious mothers and wily servants, dissembling lovers and trumped-up letters. But in an elegantly stylized production, the play seemed almost to be danced. Done so lightly, even its witless deceptions had an air of wit. Madeleine Renaud made an exquisite widow; Barrault, playing an agile valet, had about him a touch of quicksilver, of Mercury himself. To enjoy the production it was less necessary to understand French than to respond to style...
...their character tempered by wresting a living from their bleak island and the sea around it, the Newfies have developed into an independent, hardworking, happy breed. Their wit and individuality show strongly in their geographic names. Newfoundland places are called Happy Adventure, Come By Chance, Heart's Delight, Witless Bay, Cuckold's Cove, Naked Woman Point and Horse Chops. Humor and theology are neatly blended in the fact that a harbor with a broad, easy entrance is called Hell's Mouth; another that is narrow and difficult is named Big Paradise...
Last week a wave of shock ads ("No one under 16 will be admitted") ushered the claptrap into Manhattan. New York critics brushed the picture off with amused disdain. Whether taken as an inept counterfeit of Hollywood gangster movies or a witless parody, No Orchids is so ludicrous that its thugs' thinly disguised British accents seem minor imperfections...
...film's plot, however feeble, is enough to cramp the free-style wackiness of Martin & Lewis. In turn, their witless routines put a blight on whatever slim fun the play once offered in situations and dialogue. Between straight-man chores, Crooner Martin imitates Bing Crosby in the picture's songs, including one that gets billing as a Crosby imitation. Though he mugs, screeches, gyrates, even swishes through a female impersonation, Comedian Lewis sorely lacks one prop that has bolstered his success: a well-oiled nightclub audience...
...newsworthy event; that the young actor should be unanimously hailed by the critics as the best Lear they had known made it an important occasion in the English-speaking theatre. Later Lears that have come along, notably Laurence Olivier's, have pleased some critics who prefer a witless, senile Lear. But most reviewers emphasize the word "majesty' in their praise of the Devlin Lear. The New York Times corrsepondent wrote that Mr. Devlin was acting Lear "in the classical tradition, caring less for displays than for proportion, completeness, and an architectural justice of line...