Word: witting
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Irish writers are silkworms in spinning words. They have an abiding sense of the past and have never really lost the oral tradition that makes them grand tellers of tales. The psychology of their land is that of loss, but the loss is borne with salty wit and exuberantly wild fantasy...
...Casey. Even a lesser Irish dramatist like Hugh Leonard can be uncommonly rewarding. Da, now at Manhattan's Hudson. Guild Theater, means dad. The play is a fencing match with the ghosts of the past. The blood drawn is palpably human, the wit, parried and thrust, strikes sparks of continuous and sometimes quite unexpected humor. Says the father in Da of his late wife: "She died an Irishwoman's death-drinking tea." The laughs crop up like that, not as explosions but implosions, deeply rooted in character and race...
...forever startled, finally traitorous older brother in Francis Coppola's Godfather films. Other parts-notably as Al Pacino's out-of-tune partner in Dog Day Afternoon-confirmed Cazale's gift for searching out the darkest shadows in a role, then rendering them with shades of wit and unswerving compassion...
...running patter about the things Vidal loves to hate: population growth, women writers who try to write like Henry Miller, hacks, agents, the so-called communications industry, and politicians. By now these subjects are part of the author's reflexology, though as a latter-day Restoration wit he can still bring them to life in cutting caricature...
...pairs of winds, timpani and strings, and its transparent orchestration and rapid, exposed passage work require a great deal of precision and technical skill. The orchestra maintained its accuracy while capturing Prokofieff's mischievous spirit; indeed, the musicians' dexterity seemed to increase as they became more inebriated with the wit and humor of the composer. During the rambunctious Finale, with its amazingly rapid flurries of notes, both the precise control of Wilkins's conducting and the breathless exhilaration of his musicians were very much in evidence, and the orchestra romped down to the final chords with both Prokofieff's neoclassical...