Saturday, June 6, 2009 - At the Theatre

Introduction

It is Saturday - so today's puzzle is by Cox and Rathvon. Today they go to the theatre - with a program consisting largely of classical music, a soupcon of film thrown in, and a little food and drink before the performance.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

I encountered some difficulty figuring out the wordplay on:

5ac Blackens General Electric's juice makers? (7)

I got "Blackens" being CHAR^S and "General Electric" being (GE), producing CHAR(GE)S. (Although I originally had this as CHAR + GES = CHAR|GES, I concluded that it would be grammatically inconsistent to equate "blackens" to CHAR.) I was initially fixated on orange juice (ORANGES even fitting as a solution until I had solved 5d). I think "juice" must refer to "electricity". Pursuing this line of attack, CHARGERS might seem to be a better grammatical fit for "juice makers". However, if one thinks of CHARGE as a noun rather than a verb, I think there may be a fit - as in "a battery good for a thousand charges" (meaning it can be recharged a thousand times). It still sounds a bit forced to my ear but, hey, it is a cryptic definition after all.

Solution to Today's Puzzle

Legend:	"CD" Cryptic Definition; "DD" Double Definition
	"*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed
	"( )" letters inserted; "_" letters deleted

Across

1ac PAL|OMAR

5ac CHAR(GE)S - CD

9ac RAVEL

10ac MAN|A|CLING

11ac {ANTONIO VIVALDI}* - {NOT A VIOLIN DIVA}*

13ac _RE|CHER|CHE_ - theat[RE CHER CHE]cks

15ac C|ACT|I

17ac SUSHI - sounds like {SUE SHE}

19ac RATION|ALE - CD

21ac {THE FOUR SEASONS}* - {OAF RUSHES NOTES}*; a set of concertos by Vivaldi

25ac HER|BARIUM

26ac I|RATE

27ac _ICEBERG_ - cand[ICE BERG]en

28ac CHAS|TEN

Down

1d PER(M|AFROS)T

2d LEVITICUS* - {ELVIS I CUT}*

3d ME|LANGE

4d ROME|O

5d CONT(IN)ENT

6d ARCH|AIC<

7d G|RIND

8d SAGE - DD

12d EISENSTEIN* - {SEINE NETS I}*

14d C|AROUSING

16d CH(A|TOY)ANT

18d INF|LAME

20d OCARINA* - {CON ARIA}*

22d HORSE - sounds like HOARSE

23d SUMAC<

d24 THAI - sounds like TIE

That's all for today. So until next week, as they say in the theatre, "Break a leg!" - Falcon