And the choreography throughout the show is first rate: characters spinning in and out of scenes, dramatic chases stuffed with action, that take place on the spot, and an opening dance number that's joyous on so many levels.
Mr. McCarthy, who has written and directed two other features — and who is a first-rate character actor specializing in second-rate characters — has a deep and nuanced understanding of the rules of comedy, which is at once the most rigorous and the most elastic of narrative genres.
Not to mention my second-rate character?
I hated playing what was obviously a second-rate character.
Pinky is played by Ricky Jay, the noted sleight-of-hand artist who has become a first-rate character actor.
A flock of first-rate character actors parades by in the heavy woolen plumage of the past.
Peter Harris, an ordinary-sounding name for an unexceptional man, is the second-rate character at the heart of Michael Cunningham's less than first-rate novel.
A gaggle of first-rate character actors trails Mr. Eastwood from Turner Field in Atlanta to the rural bars and ballparks, and the star knows how to step aside and let them work.
I couldn't even begin to formulate a response, since not only was Evan first-rate but the characters had many scenes together, including a ripsnorting duel that climaxed the first act.
There is a man who left this country with the character of a first rate naturalist (though with many eccentricities) and of a very first-rate Natural History artist and he goes to Australia and takes up the subject of Botany, of which he is as ignorant as a goose".
A neurotic, witty, irritating, grudge-holding perfectionist whose gifts were nearly but not quite first rate, Kleban was, evidently, a theater "character," beloved by theater insiders who, among other things, admired how he poured his own life experiences into his storytelling songs.
