It's a demanding and conflict-riven role, with its blend of tenderness and anger, compassion and frustration, bewilderment and assertiveness — and, as in "Husbands" and "Mikey and Nicky," it's the role of the straight man who copes with a more antic and less self-conscious partner.
With Mrs Bandaranaike unable to play any public role, the SLFP was riven by discord.
The rolling diplomatic crisis of the weeks leading up to the war has already led some experts to ask whether the Atlantic alliance, NATO, and the United Nations may all now be so badly riven that none will play their former roles again.
But the key enterprises that play a major role in the economy have been riven by corporate governance issues.
Other war-torn territories, notably Afghanistan, do not have this advantage, but are riven by social, ethnic, and religious tensions.Second, the role which foreign "nation-builders" in East Timor should play was made clearer if more daunting by the sheer extent of the arson, vandalism and looting that accompanied the Indonesian withdrawal.
FreedomWorks, a national group that has played a crucial role in organizing Tea Party activists and backing insurgent candidates, has been riven by turmoil, leading to the departure last month of its chairman, Dick Armey, a former Republican majority leader in the House.
The office of homeland security has been riven with controversy.
As a Justice, Minton frequently played the role of peace-maker and consensus builder during a period when the Court was riven with feuds.
A postponement of the vote for a month in Anbar and Nineveh Provinces, which have been riven by antigovernment protests in recent months, only exacerbated the feelings of Sunnis that they lack a meaningful role in Iraq's power structure.
The DC, riven by scandal, was replaced by a much smaller organization, the Italian Popular Party (Partito Popolare Italiano; PPI), which played a diminished role after elections in 1994.
Leon Botstein, Bard's musical and multitalented president, will take the lead; in his role as a conductor, he may have limitations, but he has won a loyal following in a business riven by instability.
