Catching up

[j4]

GUIL: So you've caught up.
PLAYER (coldly): Not yet, sir.
GUIL: Now mind your tongue, or we'll have it out and throw the rest of you
away, like a nightingale at a Roman feast.
PLAYER: Took the very words out of my mouth.
GUIL: You'd be lost for words.
ROS: You'd be tongue-tied.
GUIL: Like a mute in a monologue.
ROS: Like a nightingale at a Roman feast.
GUIL: Your diction will go to pieces.
ROS: Your lines will be cut.
GUIL: To dumbshows.
ROS: And dramatic pauses.
GUIL: You'll never find your tongue.
ROS: Lick your lips.
GUIL: Taste your tears.
ROS: Your breakfast.
GUIL: You won't know the difference.
ROS: There won't be any.
GUIL: We'll take the very words out of your mouth.
ROS: So you've caught up.
GUIL: So you've caught up.
PLAYER (tops): Not yet!

It's taking me a long time to catch up, times being what they are. But I know that the longer I procrastinate, the less likely it is I'll ever catch up with anything.

On Thursday sion_a and I went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the ADC Theatre. We were also, surprisingly, joined at the last minute by hoiho; I suspect the amateur players would have been flattered to know that somebody drove 100 miles just to see them.

Like all critics I'm a director manquée, which is to say I'd make a thoroughly manky director; but it's a play I know well, so I'm quite fussy about how it's done. Ros & Guil were played very fast-paced and nervy, which was not in itself a bad thing, but it felt as though it was taking a while for them to find their rhythm (the characters are clearly supposed to be ill at ease in their roles, but the actors shouldn't be). The actors (unlike the characters) settled down, however, once the magnificent Player King took possession of the stage; towering over the rest of the cast both physically and vocally, he manipulated everybody else in and out of their roles with his lugubriously louche tones, clearly in control throughout the play.

The characters from Hamlet were all rather colourless and washed-out; as they were all dressed in white I suspect the intention was to fade them into the background (it's certainly one interpretation of the Shakespeare/Stoppard split, but it's probably not the one I'd choose); unfortunately, when this extends (intentionally or otherwise) to having them speak less-than-audibly and act less-than-brilliantly, the potential dramatic effect is lost.

The scenery was simply and neatly done, appropriately selfconscious without being intrusive -- fairly minimal parchment-coloured backdrops in stylised shapes, covered with words ("suit the action to the word" scrawled on basic flat boards for the first act; "that is the question" on a crown suspended from the ceiling for the second; and some indecipherable text on three sail-like forms for the third, boat-bound act). Also, the emerging of the Players from the barrels on board the boat was beautifully done -- it's only a minor moment but it's delightful to see it actually work.

All in all a good amateur performance, and it was incidentally interesting to see the new revamped ADC -- no longer a poky little venue but a glass-fronted, shiny, spacious foyer. Impressive use of what is still a pretty small area, but with the theatre itself thankfully remaining fairly intimate (in fact so intimate I nearly didn't get tickets).

Friday was the last day at work in the Mill Lane office, so most of the day was spent packing, or rather shovelling everything into labelled crates and secretly hoping that the whole lot would accidentally get lost/burnt/exploded/eaten en route. The atmosphere was very much like the last day of term at school, when hard work goes to the wall and time is spent tidying desks, playing games, or just generally arsing around. There was certainly a lot of arsing around.

On Friday lunchtime I did something I'd never done before: I actually got properly measured for a bra. I've been getting increasingly annoyed with the fact that none of my bras seem to fit properly, and I needed a strapless bra, so I thought I might as well get the nice ladies at M&S to measure me. In case anybody was wondering, I'm a 36B, but only borderline 'B' cup (B-, must try harder?), nearly an 'A'; so those of you who think I have enormous tits are JUST WRONG, HA. I found a nice multiway bra, as well as one with see-through straps... and some nice knickers ... and some patterned tights... and ended up accidentally spending 50 quid on underwear. Oops.

On Friday night there was a PARTY chez the_heiress and strange_powers, which other people have already written about. The hosts were lovely, the guests likewise, the house was impressive, and the lemon drizzle cake was out of this world. (Okay, so I'm a sucker for CAKE.) Fireworks were summarily exploded, karaoke was flirted with, and Donkey Konga was rhythmically trounced. (I NEED A GAMECUBE.)

The combination of a very comfortable bed and light-excluding shutters resulted in me missing most of Saturday morning due to SLEEP. Oops. Our lovely hosts not only didn't mock, but provided breakfast! You people rule.

After breakfast it was time for more HOT KONGA ACTION, as well as Wario madness -- a hyperactive blast of three-second arcade games for people with no attention span, including games where three players gang up to obstruct the person who's actually playing the games, and games which involve wriggling your eyebrows, staring at other players, or talking while you play. In other words, ideal post-party fare. (I STILL NEED A GAMECUBE.)

Eventually addedentry and I headed back to the big smoke for more fireworks and a gig. The fireworks were magic, and the gig was great: the people who've written about the party have done better gig writeups, but I would just like to say that The Free French were fab. I think rhodri is only trying to reassure us mortals when he claims that playing bass and singing at the same time was difficult for him; I suspect he could have actually done both and written funny LiveJournal posts at the same time.

Most of Sunday was spent shuffling books and CDs and boxes around, before a frantic dash to Regent Street to try to see the Christmas lights being switched on. Unfortunately we missed the switching-on ceremony due to not being able to tell the difference between 5:30 and 7:30; I blame misleading information on the website, but of course they've moved it all now anyway. Still, the lights were still, like, on, and still very sparkly and colourful and oooooooohshiny. Fortunately the shops were shut, otherwise (if my window-shopping was anything to go by) I might have been forced to spend HUNDREDS OF POUNDS on shoes. Also admired the window display in Dickins & Jones, which consisted of scenes from the new film of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. I don't normally go to the cinema much but that's one I definitely will be seeing.

Dinner at Wagamama was delicious and provided me with some sustenance for the night drive home; really, though, it was words and music that kept me going along the dark roads of the M11, just as it's words and music that keep me going through the week.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

I did tell you ...

You didn't AFAIR, but you have done now. :) Sounds marvellous! I'm sure I remember our Shakespeare tutor at Oxford mentioning a film of Hamlet with twins playing Hamlet's ego and id, but in retrospect (and having failed to find mention of it via google) I suspect she may have been winding us up.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That would be an interesting thing to do, but it would really tie you down to taking a specific position on some of the places where the play's most interestingly ambiguous.

I think I told you about Third Party Productions' farce version of Hamlet that papersky and I saw in Swansea just before coming to Canada, which did have the one absolutely brilliant idea of having Ophelia play the mad scene by adopting all of Polonius' body-language, delivery and mannerisms. Really makes you think about a cultural context where going mad appears to be considered the standard response to losing one's father.

As having separate actors play aspects of the same character, the best I've ever seen that done was for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Trinity Players in I think 1992 at the end of a Beckett season; six actors as the public face and interior feelings of the three principals, blank stage, plain black clothes, coloured lights and tinkly Ryuichi Sakamoto music. I would never in a million years have thought of doing that play as if it were Beckett.

[ Oh, and a Montreal cultural moment from the weekend; realising that the sushi restaurant we were in was playing the theme from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, just as a very striking-looking chap, who could have almost have been one of the nobles in The Last Samurai, walked in wearing a Remembrance Day poppy. ]

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

the one absolutely brilliant idea of having Ophelia play the mad scene by adopting all of Polonius' body-language, delivery and mannerisms. Really makes you think about a cultural context where going mad appears to be considered the standard response to losing one's father.

Sounds very interesting - although I always judged Ophelia's descent into mania as being as much to with it being her boyfriend who killed her father, as well as simultaneously being rejected by him (a future king, remember) and who has also just lost a father. And all this with a vicious war looming and her only confidant - her brother - on the other side of Europe.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It's not just Ophelia, though; it's how Hamlet seems to take it for granted that everyone will think putting an antic disposition on is a perfectly natural thing for him to do because he has lost his father.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Putting it on? I think Hamlet might be trying to convinvce himself of that. And again, he hasn't just lost a father - when he thought that's all it was he was just maudlin. He's lost an father, an uncle, a mother, possibly his kingdom, his innocence and his complacency.

[j4.livejournal.com]

he hasn't just lost a father ...

"To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped on to his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now, why exactly you behaving in this extraordinary manner?"

Okay I just quoted that because it makes me laugh, not because it actually adds anything to the debate. :) On the other hand, as far as everybody else is concerned Hamlet has just lost a father: his uncle is outwardly friendly, his mother is still his mother, and both of them seem surprised that he's still so upset.

[rmc28]

My favourite production of Hamlet ever was a comedy musical done at the ADC about 3 years ago. The cast made a studio recording on CD which I bought from the bar afterward, and have come close to memorising :)