The reviewer called the production an apotheosis of bad taste. (apotheosis: culmination, pinnacle, ideal embodiment) His review compared the lead to a strutting peacock and the chorus to a menagerie. (menagerie: animal collection, zoological collection) The director admired its sarcasm, missed its contempt and pasted it to the door. (sarcasm: mockery, derision, taunting; contempt: disdain, scorn, disrespect) Only the understudy noticed the cardinal error: the critic had left before the climax. (cardinal: fundamental, central, principal; climax: culmination, peak, high point)
She invited him back for the epilogue. (epilogue: conclusion, afterword, coda) The lead was supposed to strut in the prologue, she explained. (strut: swagger, parade, walk proudly; prologue: introduction, prelude, opening) His regal pose was a parody of authority. (regal: royal, majestic, kingly; parody: spoof, lampoon, sendup) The subsequent transformation would expose the pretense. (pretense: pretending, feigning, simulation) In the last scene he would spurn his gilded robe, forsake his throne and appear in a nightshirt with a hole in one sleeve. (spurn: reject, scorn, disdain; forsake: abandon, desert, leave)
The critic agreed to sit through the complete rendition. (rendition: performance, interpretation, rendering) At the crucial moment the singer caught the nightshirt on a nail. (crucial: critical, pivotal, essential) For an instant the audience could see the regal robe underneath. His dignity might have vanished. Instead, he calmly removed both garments and finished in his own patched trousers. The critic's one-word rejoinder appeared next morning: "Encore." (rejoinder: retort, reply, riposte)