But there were still plenty of uncomfortable moments, most notably Cersei Lannister's dehumanizing "walk of shame".
Adapting Ray Cooney's 1983 West End farce Run for Your Wife was always going to be a creative challenge, if you consider that better material (notably Michael Frayn's Noises Off) made an uncomfortable transition to the big screen.
Other companies, too, are shouldering uncomfortable comparisons with Enron, most notably Global Crossing, the telecommunications company, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month and whose accounting practices have also come under scrutiny.
He also tries to wriggle out of uncomfortable situations with this tactic, most notably when he claimed ignorance of David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who has professed approval for his policies, and white supremacists.
Overall, though, this was a year in which the art world faced up to some uncomfortable home truths about its history, most notably those chapters of it that have only recently been sketched in.
Notably, the House Republicans who've signed on as sponsors appear far more uncomfortable with the shutdown than their tea party colleagues, since they represent districts heavy with federal workers and defense contractors who've already been hit by sequestration.
But the company has long been uncomfortable with Chinese demands that it censor search results to prevent users from viewing some kinds of content, notably political matters that the government deems unacceptable.
The notably smaller audience remaining for the final act doubtless reflected less on the performance than on the pews, which were uncomfortable enough to deter all but the hardiest Handelians.
