Word: shavian
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...disciple who betrayed Christ goes on trial, and his character witnesses range from Sigmund Freud to Satan himself. Guirgis's Shavian fantasy is not a jokey stunt, but a bold, blasphemous examination of the notion of forgiveness. Philip Seymour Hoffman directed a riveting -- and unjustly ignored -- production for off-Broadway's Labyrinth theater, sparked by Eric Bogosian's slick turn as the Devil...
...began concealing her cognomen in and around his portraits of famous men and women--in a Gwyneth Paltrow gown, in a Groucho jacket fold--placing a numeral next to his signature to indicate how many Ninas appeared therein. It was the niftiest Sunday parlor game, a gift from the Shavian Santa who, with the delineation in a thin line, created the joy of seraphic graphic art. --By Richard Corliss...
...concepts and then vice versa." Ain't it, though? He mixes poop and prophecy, scatology and eschatology; he crams his script with enough belly laughs for six Adam Sandler movies and enough citations of angelology and the Gnostic gospels to make a Jesuit's head split. This is a Shavian debate--Don Juan in New Jersey--with potty mouth. Dogma, recall, comes from the Greek word meaning "to think." And that's what Smith wants the viewer...
...daughter can cause each other without even trying, the play develops several contrapuntal themes: the rise of Dominic (Tate Donovan) from striving young critic to media superstar; Esme's descent into financial ruin; her mother-in-law's slide into senility. All of which is arrayed on a Shavian battlefield in which strong and articulate people grapple with ideas about art and life...
...whichever way the wind blows. The audience has little investment in the clash between them because their friendship seems implausible from the get-go: there's no explanation of how or why they became friends, no real sense of closeness. This might be tolerable if Art worked as a Shavian battle of wit and ideas, but mostly it's just three guys needling each other about everything from Serge's haughty use of the term "the artist" to the way Marc's wife contemptuously waves away cigarette smoke...