raillery ˈrā-lə-rē noun
: light, teasing repartee
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The word raillery has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past four years, including on Aug. 10, 2015, in the theater review “In ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten,’ Audra McDonald Is Front and Center” by Ben Brantley:
Mr. Turman, who appeared on Broadway as Travis in the original “A Raisin in the Sun” in 1959, is an appropriately (if sometimes overly) splenetic Phil, and it’s refreshing to have the character delivered without the usual Irish blarney. The scene in which Phil and Josie scare off a rich twit (Aaron Costa Ganis) who wants to buy their property is delightful, with father and daughter acting grotesque and menacing in ways that play into and satirize the toff’s class prejudices.
Often, though, their teasing doesn’t feel different from the family raillery of many a sitcom. You just know they’re softies inside.
Mr. Swenson, a memorably swaggering presence in the last Broadway revival of “Hair,” makes a fabulous entrance. He slouches into view, hunched and defeated, “like a dead man walking slow behind his own coffin,” as Josie says. Then, aware that he’s being watched, he sardonically strikes the pose of a ham actor greeting his audience.
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