Word: comically
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...opposite sides, spoke with the easy fluidity and courtesy of their heritage. Mezvinsky was the new boy, carefully following the mood and model of his elders, Cohen the engagingly gawky bright boy of the class. Missouri's Hungate, full of sometimes slightly hokey Ozark folklore, designated himself the comic, just as California...
Falstaff, Verdi's masterful comic opera based on Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is at the Boston Summer Opera Theater Friday and Saturday nights and next weekend as well. The summer opera is a good institution: for its patrons, it provides low prices and English-language librettos, and for its singers, it's a chance for those who haven't quite made it big yet to show their talents. How good this production will be probably depends on how good the Falstaff character is; it's a challenging role but the keystone of the opera. At St. Alphonsus...
Seraglio predates The Impresario by four years and is written in the style of the Singspiel (literally, song-play), the popular 18th century German comic opera. These days it needs a clever stage style-or more expert clowning-to make a convincing evening. This, alas, the opera failed to get from Director Anthony Besch, who unaccountably kept the action stiff and stately...
...polished as Henning is, The Magic Show's success lies not with the star but with ourselves. In an epoch of uncertainty, people need a fraud they can believe in. Magic, with its cheerful promise of mountebankery, offers a kind of low comic relief. An audience that is fooled invariably laughs, delighted that its attention has been misdirected. To Magician-Historian Robert Lund, it is "a rebellion against science." To James Randi, it is "a sign that our society is still healthy. When people stop being enthralled by a magician who can make a lady vanish, it will mean...
...Crime Novelist Donald E. Westlake, musing in front of the tube a decade ago, that was no idle question. At the time, Westlake was known mainly as a promising heir to the tough, taut Hammett-Chandler tradition. But suddenly he glimpsed the comic potential of tossing the sand of petty frustrations and human fallibility into the well-oiled machinery of the thriller. Nonviolent, Runyonesque crooks could become the victims, and everyday life the culprit. Getaway cars could stall, crucial phone numbers could slip the mind, a paralyzing snowstorm could fall on the day of a planned bank heist...