Word: wordplay
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...well as skeptics. William Goldman tried all this in his 1973 novel The Princess Bride. His narrative had all the proper ingredients and all the right new moves: he deconstructed his text and undercut it with the cadences of a Borscht Belt raconteur. But on the page, Goldman's wordplay seemed too much of a jape. It needed the expanse of cinema -- where on the late show Errol Flynn and Gunga Din are still storybook young -- to revive the poetry of fable. Now, 14 years later, he and Rob Reiner have got it smashingly right...
...these interpretive schemes, biological assumptions of gender are overcome by examining the sexes as socialized functions, so that "it is not true that literature contains no examples of male pregnancy," just as it is equally untrue that all women want to have babies. Moreover, the theoretical wordplay is reoriented, so that one now discusses literary themes in terms of matricide and womb-envy, that is, in terms of the woman's experience...
...February, enabling a revamp of sets, story lines and characters. It did not help: Search for Tomorrow remained the lowest-rated network soap. Its final episode will air on Friday, Dec. 26. After that, the daily woes will be replaced by happy contestants on a new game show called WordPlay...
Gelber's straightforward direction showcases Stoppard's sharp verbal exchanges and dazzling wordplay. He and Watson make a fine team, both of them endearing in their pathetic plight. And but for a few swallowed lines, the supporting cast keeps the inspiring lunacy going at a quick, clever pace. Stoppard's stock of metaphysical puns and absurd rhetoric of despair flies so fast that they rarely become over-bearing. From all sides of the coin, a spirited showing for two of the Bard's interchangeable bit players...
...with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier and it makes me free to say anything I want." As that self-analysis suggests, Sondheim's lyrics consistently reach past charm and wordplay (in which he delights) to become compact, emotive playlets. He composes not just songs but complexly interwoven suites. The tales his shows tell are almost all about loneliness, obsession and disillusionment--there is scarcely a happy love story in the lot --yet their honest grasp of human nature brings unexpected...