For all of its theatrical genius, "The Living Blog" is marred almost irreparably by the obnoxious and grating antics of Punch and Judy. The pair rudely invade the foreground a total of four times, accompanied by an entourage of tuneless singing jesters that belongs in some horrific rendition of "Barney and Friends in the Sixteenth Century." It's tasteless. It's annoying. This is the point, however. According to the program:
Punch and Judy assault the performance in ways that reflect a user's experience of almost any commercially-based webpage. [They] are the nagging adds that compete for your attention.
The night I attended, there was no competition. By the fourth ridiculous Punch and Judy skit I was torn between heckling the puppeteers and walking out of the theater. It was overkill. The play's conclusion, however, was devastating and genuinely surprising; it was just enough to make suffering through Punch and his pitiful minstrels worthwhile.
2 comments:
Here's a grammatical question. Read the following sentence:
"The pair rudely invade the foreground a total of four times, accompanied by an entourage of tuneless singing jesters that belongs in some horrific rendition of..."
"Belongs" is correct (according to Strunk and White and The Vampire) as the singular verb that corresponds to the singular subject "entourage," but it just sounds awful in this context. Is their an exception to the rule I am missing, or is my sentence just "so clumsy and awkward it necessitates a rewrite"?
I think the correct usage sounds fine. However, if you really hated the sound of it you could simply leave out "an entourage of." The sentence would not be dramatically changed and any sticky verb situations would be eliminated.
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