And while we’re on the subject of Barrie Kosky, I should add that his production of Poppea at the Opera House was excellent. Most of the reviews have pointed out that Monteverdi’s audience would have known that Poppea came to a bad end. But so would Mel Brooks’.
Skip to 6.20 if you don’t have time to watch one of the funniest scenes ever filmed.
Presenting CAPULET, father to JULIET, also a DICK.
Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,
She, I’ll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
Richard III is a bogeyman from an old tapestry when compared to the chilling realism of Capulet. He’s the stuff of nightmares even before he tries to marry off his daughter four days after her cousin was murdered and then has the cheek to act as if this will cheer her up. We’ve all encountered this kind of Dad in all his ghastly heartiness. I bet he used to do that ‘pull my finger’ thing too.
Categories: drama · shakespeare
Venus is played by the two leads; her attempted seduction of Adonis is mostly addressed directly to the audience. This is a very effective dramatisation: sexy, funny and moving. The live music by Felicity Clark, Michael Sheridan, Bree van Reyk was great. It was so good it made me feel a bit bad about my lampoon of the poem last week. I read it to prepare for the play, not as part of the Auden on Shakespeare project. The Auden lectures don’t cover any of the long poems, which is a shame.
Categories: drama · poetry · review · sex · shakespeare
Of the plays I’ve read so far, the Henry VIs have too many characters named after counties swapping sides every other scene; Richard III is a series of brilliant monologues strung through a chronicle; and The Comedy of Errors is really just stupid. The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first which I can imagine actually working as a play without drastic cuts. Except maybe for the following scene.
Act V, Scene 4: Another part of the forest. Valentine
is hanging out and acting like the least frightening
bandit in all of Italy. Enter Proteus and Silvia.
(Also enter Julia dressed as a boy, but I’m not going
to get into that in this post.)
Pro. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
Can no way change you to a milder form,
I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arms’ end,
And love you ‘gainst the nature of love- force ye.
Sil. O Heaven!
Pro. I’ll force thee yield to my desire.
Val. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;
Thou friend of an ill fashion!
[EIGHTEEN LINES in which Proteus says SORRY]
Val. Who by repentance is not satisfied
Is nor of heaven nor of earth, for these are pleas’d;
By penitence th’Eternal wrath’s appeas’d.
And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
Pro. Sweet.
Sil. Excuse me? Um…
You do know what that “soldier” business meant?
Categories: drama · sex · shakespeare
NOTE: the two Antipholuses are played by early-80s Bill Murray, and Dromio is played by early-80s Rick Moranis.
The Scene: Ephesus
Scene I. A cheap little hotel room
Enter Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse.
Ant. S. Well, here we are. Good mornin’, Ephesus!
Go out and get a pack of Marlboro Lights,
Oh, and a premise for a comedy.
Dro. S. To do all your commands is but my wish,
But smoking’s very bad -
Ant. S. Get outta here.
Scene II. Poolside of Antipholus of Ephesus
Enter Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse
Ant. E. So, Drome, the wife is on my case again.
I’ve order’d just the thing to buy her off,
A lovely necklace, care of Angelo.
So be a pal, go over there and get it.
Drom. S. But you just said – what necklace? – I’m confused.
You wanted cigarettes? And an idea?
Ant. E. Confused? That’s funny, I’m confused as well.
I’m wondering what you’re still doing here
When I just ordered you to do a job! [Beats him.
[Exit Dromio S.
Scene III. The cheap little hotel room, again
Ant. S. So, ideas, little man. I’m dying here.
Drom. S. Well, here’s the necklace, boss, just like you said.
Ant. S. You didn’t get an idea for the play?
Drom. S. No, but I heard a joke about a fat chick.
Ant. S. Thou drunkard! Varmint! Idiot! Thou worm!
Like those? Some fancy cuss-words, just for you.
Now have a fancy blow across the skull. [Beats him.
Drom. S. Say, I’ve a thought. What if we had twins,
Another master and another drudge,
And then got all mixed up? Would that be fun?
Ant. S.Yeah, that’d be just swell. Two sets of twins.
It just so happens that they dress the same!
Hold still, I think there’s something on your head. [Beats him.
Categories: drama · shakespeare
I got Auden’s Lectures on Shakespeare with a Christmas book voucher: one lecture for almost every one of the plays, plus the sonnets. One of the blurbs says something like “If you’ve ever wanted an excuse to read all of Shakespeare, here it is.” “As if,” I said to myself as I dove into the first chapter, which covers all three parts of Henry VI…
Um, so, right, anyway. Those history plays are pretty tough going, aren’t they? Good thing there’s a bit of farce here and there to keep you awake.
2 Henry VI
Act 5, Scene I. Fields between Dartford and Blackheath.
Enter York, and his army of Irish, with drums and colours
York. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right
And pluck the crown from feeble Henry’s head.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, I rock.
Buck. Ho, wherefore do you march against our King?
York. [Aside] GRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Ahem, excuse my throat, I have a cold.
The cause why I have bought this army thither
Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,
Seditious to his Grace and to the State.
Buck. Why, Somerset is taken prisoner.
York. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?
Buck. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.
York. You’re really sure that he is prisoner?
Buck. He’s really, really, really prisoner.
York. Pinkie promise?
Enter the King, and Attendants
King. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,
That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?
York. No, no, we’re cool, it’s Somerset I want.
Oh, how I hate that Duke of Somerset.
I hear you have him locked up in a dungeon?
Enter the Queen and Somerset.
Som. What up, bitches?
The King makes frantic ‘No, no’ and throat-cutting gestures
King. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th’Queen:
Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.
Categories: drama · shakespeare
A review in verse of Lipsynch, directed by Robert Lepage, produced by Ex Machina and Théâtre Sans Frontières
Something commanding, with a dash of Art,
And lots of opportunities for travel.
Opera’s good. Not sport: we want you smart
And tragic when your life starts to unravel.
A judge or doctor? Brain – no grosser part -
The stethoscope is better than the gavel.
For neurosurgeons can pontificate
On Mind and Soul, Mortality and Fate.
Third class? ¿Habla Inglese? I’ll be brief:
Your role is taken from the hordes of Others.
A sex-trafficked illegal or a thief,
Junkies and alcoholic single mothers.
Your never-ending suffering and grief
Will prove that men (and women) are all brothers.
You’ll be the dark incursion of the Real
Who teaches the commanders how to feel.
The rest of you: this way, please. Cloak your bags,
And switch off any video devices.
Your part is small, but crucial: you’re the dags
With boring jobs and no alarming vices,
Not high enough to plummet from the crags,
But not so low you can’t afford our prices.
This is all for your benefit, you know:
Sit back, relax, and just enjoy the show.
From ‘Stories of Michael Robartes and his Friends: An Extract from a Record Made by his Pupils’, one of the odd little semi-biographical fictions which enliven W B Yeats’ A Vision:
“My name is Daniel O’Leary, my great interest is the speaking of verse, and the establishment some day or other of a small theatre for plays in verse. You will remember that a few years before the Great War the realists drove the last remnants of rhythmical speech out of the theatre. I thought common sense might have returned while I was at war or in the starvation afterwards, and went to Romeo and Juliet to find out. I caught those two well-known persons Mr. . . . and Miss . . . at their kitchen gabble. Suddenly this thought came into my head: What would happen if I were to take off my boots and fling one at Mr. . . . and one at Miss . . . ? Could I give my future life such settled purpose that the act would take its place not among whims but among forms of intensity? I ran through my life from childhood and decided that I could. ‘You have not the courage,’ said I, speaking aloud but in a low voice. ‘I have,’ said I, and began unlacing my boots. ‘You have not,’ said I, and after several such interchanges I stood up and flung the boots.
“Unfortunately, although I can do whatever I command myself to do, I lack the true courage, which is self-possession in an unforeseen situation. My aim was bad. Had I been throwing a cricket-ball at a wicket, which is a smaller object than an actor or actress, I would not have failed; but as it was, one boot fell in the stalls and the other struck a musician or the brassy thing in his hand. Then I ran out of a side door and down the stairs. [...]
“You can understand even better than Robartes why that protest must always seem the great event of my life.”
This in 1925, mark you, from a man who knew a thing or two about being on the receiving end.
I thought that a Generation X upbringing, with its strict training in wringing the last droplets of ironic enjoyment from even the most appallingly bad movies and music, when combined with an appreciation of the anti-craftsmanship aesthetics of both punk rock and the experimental music tradition exemplified by the Portsmouth Sinfonia, would have equipped me with the mental discipline to sit patiently through most anything at a children’s concert. And it did. Unless there is a violin.
Kids can really dance now. Boys and girls, they have all got serious moves. And they can all do the Macarena, and will break into it spontaneously, with a kind of eerie precision. I feel like a relic from a lost generation, survivors of a graceless and gawky Dark Age of Dance, wallflowers or pathetic disco shufflers when compared with our foxtrotting, jitterbugging parents and our krunking, popping-locking children. Really, the best we ever did was collapse onto the dancefloor during the bit in ‘Rock Lobster’ where he goes ‘Down, down, down!’
Every school hall now has a better sound system than every small venue I saw a band play in the 80s. Although CD backing and digital sound adds an aura of professionalism to the whole affair, they also open up the possibility of catastrophic failure when the wrong CD is inserted, or, worse, when the CD is left at home. This happens all the time.
It goes without saying that none of the foregoing refers to either my own children or to yours, whose appearances in Christmas pageants, talent quests and all other amateur theatricals are, of course, characterised by all the unmistakable hallmarks – grace, talent, dignity and modesty – of true art.
Adapted from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera by Stephen Jeffreys. Directed by Max Stafford-Clark. Sydney Theatre Company
Saw this in previews a couple of weeks ago but forgot to review it. The conceit is that a group of convicts bound for Botany Bay are staging The Beggar’s Opera to pass the time on the voyage: this is a great concept which the adaptation generally carries off well. The to-and-fro between rehearsals on ship and the plot of the original are a bit creaky sometimes but in general it stops the show getting too bogged down and some of the transitions are sublimely funny.
The musical numbers are about half-and-half modern pop standards and what I suppose are songs from the original show. The cast are about half and half Australian and UK, and about the same mixture of opera and theatre performers, I think, and all the singing (and live music performed on stage by the cast) was terrific.
Overall it was much more fun than a 17th century musical, even one as roguish as The Beggar’s Opera, has any right to be.
The staging was great, except that I’m sure I saw a FILING CABINET. ON A SHIP. A SAILING SHIP IN 18-OH-WHATEVER.
