Sentence:  Probably nowhere else do the popular playmakers of Broadway reveal their imaginative shortcomings so clearly as in the employment of what is colloquially known as <WSD>hokum</WSD>. In particular, comedy <WSD>hokum</WSD>. [...] Year in and year out, and (though still largely sure-fire) become drably stereotyped and threadbare, this <WSD>hokum</WSD> of tripping over the doormat, throwing an imaginary object into the wings and having the stagehand thereupon strike a gong, and the like, is promulgated in all the glory of its venerable whiskers. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  (An instance of) excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material in a film, television programme, theater production, etc.