Spider-Man Tell-All dishes up similistic put-downs

     In  his tell-all memoir, Song Of Spider-man
 In The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History ,  Glen Berger dishes up  some pithy  similistic takes on the show and the main players.   His most caustic  comparison likens  New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel  to "a parasite-carrying blood-sucking mosquito depositing the larvae of an elephantiasis-causing filarial worm under the skin of our show"

As for his own decision to cut himself loose from Ms. Taymor's  influence and move in a different direct,  Ms. Taymor  likens it to "a masectomy."

 Mark Harris,  who reviewed Berger's  book for  the New York Times  apty  sums it up with a trope, likening it to "a coroner’s report signed, sealed and delivered by one of the parties responsible for the victim’s demise."

Incidentally,   though the show still hasn't  earned back its  huge investment,  it's  still running!

Here's a link  to my review when it finally had its  official opening
www.curtainup.com/spiderman.html

Betrayal's astronomical tkt prices defined by tropes from Snobbery in America

Joseph Epstein,  a prolific  Chicago  essayist and short story writer,  is  one  of  my  recently  discovered  favorite  writers.   While   his books  have nothing  to  do  with   my  main beat, the theater,   a chapter called  "The art of  With-it-ry" from   his  terrific  Snobbery in America   helped me to  explain  the  buzz  that  has  made  the  revival  of Harold Pinter's  Betrayal  the hottest ticket in town.   To see how,   see  www.curtainup.com/betrayal13.html  In  talking about   another aspect of snobbery -- name  dropping --  Epstein   used  this   pity  simile to   recollect  a   prime  example  among  his acquaintances:

Names came burbling out of  his mouth  like  froth from  champagne

Broadway as a metaphor for a graveyard. . .

 The  latest   big bucks,  celebrity affiliated  musical  headed to Broadway  is  The Last Ship by rock super star Sting who's  well aware that  Broadway  is  not  always  kind even to  shows  with a big name  attached to them.  His  metaphoric  sum-up likend  Broadway to  " a landscape littered with bleached corpses."

A "Bad Jews" character with the sense of humor of an overdue library book

Up and coming  playwright Joshua Harmon's  Bad Jews was a hit in its premiere performance at a small black box theater.   His delicisously  nasty little family comedy, Bad Jews,  has now been given a commercial production .    Harmon's  gift  for  funny  dialogue and  situations   is evident even in his  playscript  notes.  For example,    this    description of  one  of  the    angry,  young adults   who make up the cast:

Liam, an  Asian studies PH.d  student  who's  less  of an observant Jew than the  super Jewish  cousin he detests is  describes as having   as much of a sense of humor as an overdue library book.

 For a nifty similistic putdown from  Daphna Feygenbaum, the  chief  claimant to being the family's 
claimant  as   the family's  truly good Jew about  Liam's  latest  "Shiksa" girl friend Melody  who she  says  looks  as  if  she was  live water-birthed in a Talbot’s.

Guess who went through ladies like a hot knife through fudge

Similes  about   men with voracious  sexual  appetites. . .

In  his new book  Ava Gardner - The Secret Conversations Peter Evans quotes  Gardner  on  one of  the men in her life, the 5-foot-2  Mickey Rooney as " going  through ladies like a hot knife through fudge."

Oscar Hammerstein's similes still sing delightfully. . .

My main activity since compiling the first edition of  Similes Dictionary  has been as editor and publisher of  the online theater-zine  Curtainup.com. Naturally, this has led me to many apt examples in dramatic dialogue and songs with which to enrich the new edition.

The new edition  features   many nifty additions  from song lyrics,   but
few song writers can match Oscar Hammerstein’s gift for poetic figures of speech that sing gloriously.   With the Berkshire Theater Group  doing a  revival  of  Oklahoma!  I   welcomed  a chance to  actually  hear some  of  the  Dictionary's  entries   sung  on  the stage of  the beautifully restored  Colonial Theater in Pittsfield -- for example:

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye and it
looks like it’s climbin’ clear up to the sky

(And I) Sit by myself like a cobweb on a shelf


(I am) free as a breeze, free like a bird in the
woodland wild, free like a gypsy, free like a
child

And, of course there's this from Ado Annie's famous "I cain't Say No"

Watchagonna do when a feller gets flirty
An'wants to talk purty
Watcha gonna do?
So s'posing that he says
That your lips are like cherries, Or Roses or berries

Similes are part of James Goldman's verbal arsenal. in The Lion in Winter

James Goldman's  The Lion In Winter  about  a   squabbling  Medieval Royal family wasn't  a big hit on Broadway but it's been  a  crowd pleaser at regional  theaters  for many years.  It's   continued success  with audiences  can be attributed to  the playwright's   way  with  witty  dialogue--  so  it should come as  no surprise  that  it  includes its share of   clever tropes.   Here are two   that popped  out at me  when I attended  the production now at the Berkshire Theater Group in Stockbridge, Mass.

To  illustrate   the Royal  couples  acerbic  interchanges,  in  Henry,   himself a flagrant adulterer,  accuses  his  aging  wife  of  doing her share of  extra-marital  fornication:
I marvel at you:  after all  these years, still  like a democratic drawbridge, going down for everybody.  Picking up on the  drawbridge metaphor,  the Queen  wryly replies  At my age, there's not much traffic any more.


The queen also  comments  philosophically   about  their life:  Life, if it's like anything at all, is like an avalanche.  To blame the little ball of snow that starts it all, to say it is the cause, is just as true as it is meaningless.

Here's a link to   my review of  the Berkshire  Theater Group's  production  at its  Stockbridge:
www.curtainup.com/lioninwinterberk.html