Politicians poised to sling mud might take a pointer or two from A. R. Gurney: Good manners can be lethal weapons, and a glancing sideswipe may cause more damage than a punch in the nose.
An expert demonstration of such tactics is on view at the Flea Theater, where Sigourney Weaver and John Lithgow are deploying annihilating charm in Mr. Gurney's disarming new play, "Mrs. Farnsworth," which opened last night. Though it deals with revelations that are the stuff of smear campaigns, "Mrs. Farnsworth" is as polite and sweetly subversive a political attack as you're likely ever to come across.
Like Tim Robbins's "Embedded," currently at the Public Theater, "Mrs. Farnsworth" takes aim at the sitting president of the United States. But whereas Mr. Robbins's series of satiric sketches registers as a loud and angry a scream, Mr. Gurney's latest offering feels as if it's spoken out of the side of the mouth, sotto voce through a firmly locked jaw.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/theater/reviews/08FARN.html
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