Word: comically
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Cyra McFadden's comic bestseller, The Serial, was as much journalism as satire. In order to devastate her prey, the trendy, upper-middle-class denizens of Marin County, Calif., McFadden did not resort to barbed wisecracks: she merely let her characters speak for themselves. Like Director-Writer Paul Mazursky in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, she understood that the affluent, desperate hipsters of the Far West are their own worst enemies. There is no point in making fun of people who are already self-parodies...
...Levene had graced the British stage for 53 years, he would long since have been knighted. He is a pluperfect master of the groan, the pause, the gravelly riposte, and nobody, but nobody, has his comic timing...
...only blot on the premiere is Kenneth Ryan, who lacks a sense of comic timing as Wheeler, stepping on some of Leib's best laugh lines. Which is a shame, because Terry is a very funny play, and depends on its humor to reach those for whom absurdism is not an assumption. (I am thinking particularly of the middle-aged audience that grew up with, not after Camus...
These transitions from the Riley home to the pub (a wonderfully dilapidated one, designed by Derek McLane), from disturbing reality to comic illusion, occur smoothly under Maddy DeLone's crisp direction. DeLone makes full use of the intimate confines of the Winthrop House JCR, organizing the human traffic with all the aplomb of a Back Bay traffic cop. A Stoppard play needs technical gadgetry: for true comic effect, Enter a Free Man should have a "Rule Britannia" clock, a few portraits of the Queen, BBC radio droning in the background, and "indoor rain." The Winthrop production manages well without them...
More successful is Laura Rogerson as Linda, flouncing around the stage in her pajamas, hurling insults and lapsing into romatic reverie. Rogerson exhibits superb comic timing and movement, but she, too is overly restrained. We cannot understand her rebelliousness without a deeper glimpse into her frustration and her innate childishness...