This production seemed to assert that the only way we can take opera seria seriously is to treat it as camp, as if its stentorian rulers and knotty plots should be lightly mocked as Regency extravagance.

No popcorn breaks: miss a minute of this knotty plot and you'll be sorry (Maslin).

The revisions were made mostly to simplify the knotty plot.

In a plot somewhat knotty for even the most ardent devotees of anime (comics-derived Japanese animation), the events of "Princess Mononoke" begin with an attack on a remote mountain village.

The spirits howl with laughter, shout "Bravo," puzzle through the knotty plot - as indeed the real audience does.

Along with the knotty plot logistics comes an uncommonly vivid sense of place.