another SOTA or two

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 25 04:30:13 UTC 2012


Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> A new, evidently quite literate and charming play on Broadway, "The =
> Lyons", was reviewed in the Times today:
> =
> http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/theater/reviews/the-lyons-by-nicky-s=
> ilver-at-vineyard-theater-review.html
>
> It's a "savagely sentimental portrait of familial loneliness" by Nicky =
> Silver and starring Linda Lavin, which is fine, only the family in =
> question consists of Curtis Lyons, Lisa Lyons, Ben Lyons, and Rita =
> Lyons, which according to the way I was brought up would make the family =
> (and thus the name of any eponymous play) "The Lyonses".  Alternatively, =
> the members of the family would consist of "Curtis Lyon", "Lisa Lyon", =
> etc.  Apparently this didn't bother either the playwright or the =
> reviewer, who doesn't mention it.  Has this shift now become inevitable?
>  (Well, I suppose the play could have been called "The Lyon's".

The link was split. Here is a short link:
http://goo.gl/hkA3P

Comment: After a prescriptivist grammarian saw the show in preview and
alerted the playwright. Nicky Silver added another scene: Daddy Lyons
who is dying of cancer is acclaimed by his fellow family members as
"The Lyons", the reification of the positive attributes of the family.

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