Word: comically
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...powerful headquarters of a good novel. Such crossbreeding of genres is not mythical or even uncommon in 20th century literature--take Nabokov's career, for example, which includes a novel in the guise of an annotated poem. Pale Fire, and a literary biography that's also a comic masterpiece. Nikolai Gogol. What makes Julian Barnes's achievement so remarkable, however, is the sheer lack of artifice and pyrotechnics involved...
Throughout the play, Swados's somewhat pushy poignancy and simplistic sociology cuts in like so many unruly school kids in the lunch line. She relays her statements less heavy-handedly in a song like "The Undiscovered Son," a comic and lonely fantasy about being the unknown child of various famous and pseudo-famous people. As Eddie, Jay Winthrop sings well and does a fine job of fusing the hope and resiliency so vital to a runaway's survival...
...bright yellow and peacock green, Lawrence looks a little like a wayward hairdresser from Soho. Twittering about to arrange a meeting between his niece and her enamorata. Pandarus is the quintessmal old fuss budget. While Ulysses gets the most elegant lines in the piece Pandarus gets enough good comic material to read for the role of a Green Johnny Carson. Blunt to the point of abrasiveness. Pandarus urges the lovers to abandon useless talk and move into more substantial endeavors once they have made each other's acquaintance...
Wheeler wisely cast actors strong on the comic aspect. John Bottoms moves smoothly from Roy Orbison raptures to sputtering outrage to weary depression; he can't quite bring off the tender pathos written into the script, but few could do any better. Stehlin turns a stock soap opera part (the idealistic male ingenue) into a combination of Matthew Broderick and Woody Allen acting out a Roy Rogers fantasy; he suffers worst from the capricious plotting, and can't expand his stage presence into a full three dimensions...
...pencil-armed host of cable TV's Hot Properties, was not so lucky. Four days before WrestleMania, Hogan was demonstrating a front chin-lock on Belzer, who went limp and fell unconscious to the floor. When he rose, a pool of blood had formed under his head; the comic required eight stitches. John Stossel, a reporter for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20, got a rounder basting when he told David ("Dr. D") Schultz, "You know, I think this is fake." His integrity impugned, the humongous Dr. D viciously swatted Stossel twice to the ground. Belzer is considering a lawsuit; Stossel...