Word: melodrama
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...UNTIL THE '30's did American theater begin to come into its own, freed from the trappings of burlesque and tinny melodrama by a rising generation of playwrights with something to say about America, not just about the commonplace, tired excuses for dramatic themes that until then were the bulk of theater in this country. The best, or at least the most successful, of that generation of writers was Maxwell Anderson, whose Winterset (1935) is currently in performance at the Loeb. Anderson tried to work modern themes into the dramatic contexts of his plays without overwhelming the drama...
...years ago when Queen Elizabeth's sister, Princess Margaret, wound up British royalty's longest romantic melodrama since the days of Edward VIII and Wallis ("the woman I love") Simpson by dropping her hopes of marrying Group Captain Peter Townsend. For all of his qualifications as a royal spouse, the dashing Battle of Britain hero had that fatal divorce in his background. So Britons were doubly cheered when, five years later at 29, the willful Meg finally made it to the altar, this time with Antony Armstrong-Jones, the arty son of a Welsh barrister and a promising...
...integration: art to convey a message. He places Annie Hall on the narrative content side (he considers the film cinematically inept), and Jaws on the side of good cinematic technique with trivial content. Neither bridges the gap the way Welles' Touch of Evil, superficially seen as a lurid melodrama, does, creating a broader cinematic metaphor. He gives Annie Hall a grade of B-, Jaws a D. So much for my favorite films...
...German immigrant community. Memories of grisly scenes such as a hanging, or even the dying of his injured dog provide a bleak background for the short stories. Without any annoying psychoanalysis Schorer portrays his raging father and his suicidal mother. Even though his history provides him plentiful opportunities for melodrama, the adult Schorer distances himself as much as possible from his boyhood emotions. He brusquely emphasizes the disadvantaged perspective of a child whose ignorance left the most important questions about causes and relationships unasked, while often leading him to unfair judgments. Schorer tells of his exit from a stuffy, rural...
...evening has the flavor of a tall tale recounted by an accomplished barroom raconteur. The story derives from a little civic melodrama that really took place in a small Texas town some years ago, and it is engagingly rich in regional nostalgia and spiced with delicate bawdry. Not surprisingly, the co-author of the libretto is a storyteller of no mean skill, Larry L. King, an accomplished journalist who wrote a compact account of the actual facts underlying Whorehouse after they occurred. To tell it as it is in the show, a rural community, Gilbert, has long tolerated, secretly relished...