Word: slapstick
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Jones is vindicated: we see that some 16 million years ago, the slapstick asteroid A slammed into planet B (Mars, the fourth rock from the sun), dislodging spud-size meteorite C, which spitballed through space and whammed into planet D (Earth). Betimes, the alien microspud wakes up in the Antarctic and assumes the shape of an outlandishly hot idea, E (LIFE ON MARS!!!!), which pinballs hectically through Earthling media, knocking vases off the mantelpiece, toppling assumptions, causing tabloid amazement and theological consternation...
...furious at Hollywood for mangling great novels and instead allow a movie version to stand on its own. This season's Austen fare, "Emma," adapted and directed by Douglas McGrath, borrows the book's social satire, but unwisely replaces its canny ironic bite with what in comparison resembles absurd slapstick. We can enjoy the product of this limited adaptation--funny, outrageously decorated--but it's anything but great Austen...
Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart called their script "a scenario for vaudevillians." Zaks' triumph is to pay homage to the days of Yiddish slapstick while using actors too young to have played the Catskills. Luckily, he has Nathan Lane as Pseudolus, the role created by Zero Mostel. Though only 40 and only Irish, Lane is the mystic repository of the ancients' physical gag bag. A double take is concrete poetry when he does it, and a pratfall a plie. He also elevates some of his more plebeian colleagues. Mark Linn-Baker, no natural farceur, is at first uneasy...
...rare bright spot came via the first scene featuring Danton Char (Ben Ibriated) and Jesse Hawkes (Dixie Ticonderoga) together. Their humorous blend of dance, slapstick and song put all but Andrew Burlinson's polished Marquesa to shame, even if it did stretch the bounds of Char's Bogart-infused voice...
Whatever dignity or solidity the play may have had is blown apart by the last scene, which is so preposterous as to border on slapstick. John the guitarist is killed in a comically unconvincing mugging; Joe the drummer is hauled off by the police after being accused by the prostitute of some vague crime, in response to which she does a hilarious touch-down-type victory dance. To make matters worse, all this is narrated by the formerly mute homeless...