Word: witnesses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Sheik Yerbouti, while a neat idea, shows more than anything else Zappa's growing tendency to churn out songs that rely solely on shock value and unnerving repetition. In his best moments, Zappa is a musician of wit and surprise. A diverse composer and a melodically gifted guitarist, he is capable of highly original fusions of rock and jazz. Why drain all his energies on social satire when others will continue to produce it unwittingly? American Society provides more than enough material for satire--Zappa the critic will always persist. Let us hope that he can revive his musical ingenuity...
...British wit also characterizes the Dunster House production of Shaw's Heartbreak House. Though not lacking in Shavian verbal cleverness, this play is atypical Shaw in certain ways. It abounds in action, making it less talkative than Man and Superman or Saint Joan. The characters are more three-dimensional and very finely drawn; they espouse philosophies, instead of embodying them, as is so often the case with Shavian types. Often, in fact, they seem to echo characters of other plays by Shaw, only they turn out not to be what they seem. This motif runs through Heartbreak House...
...government of France. Under the pressures of war from Britain, The Netherlands, Austria and Prussia, and the threat of civil war in the provinces, the Committee condemned hundreds of aristocrats, clergymen and ordinary folk to their death on charges of plotting counterrevolutionary activities. Justice was rough, swift and harsh. Wit nesses were summoned at the discretion of the courts, defendants were refused the right of counsel, and verdicts were limited to acquittal or death. The rattle of the tumbrels, the two-wheeled carts that car ried the doomed through the streets to the guillotine, became a familiar sound in French...
...British wit also characterizes the Dunster House production of Shaw's Heartbreak House. Though not lacking in Shavian verbal cleverness, this play is atypical Shaw in certain ways. It abounds in action, making it less talkative than Man and Superman or Saint Joan. The characters are more three-dimensional and very finely drawn; they espouse philosophies, instead of embodying them, as is so often the case with Shavian types. Often, in fact, they seem to echo characters of other plays by Shaw, only they turn out not to be what they seem. This motif runs through Heartbreak House...
...Swedish Army" relates a sudden meeting of the author and a unit of Swedish soldiers on maneuvers in lower Manhattan, an exercise of the imaginative virtuosity that has characterized Barthelme's style. And "The Abduction of the Seraglio," in the best of these stories, sparkles with Barthelme's wit and masterful stylistic control...