![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 6th, 2009 10:09 amNow I know some of you guys know this guy from various televisiony places; my personal reaction when he popped up onstage at the play I was seeing last night was "SURPRIES MACBETH! . . . I wonder if there will be a stripping scene?" (Sadly, there was not.)
The play, for the record, was Women Beware Women, which I read for class last spring. The DEATH BY FLAMING PROJECTILE MOLTEN GOLD did not disappoint! Nor did Hera descending from the clouds like a hilariously murderous Glinda the Good Witch, nor did everyone falling over and dying in agony and shouting "MURDER, FOUL MURDER" while Duke Macbeth looked very put out and complained that this play made no sense at all. I did not remember the bit where the priest got gorily stabbed in the neck with his own cross, so possibly they put that in as an extra awesome bonus! I am not complaining.
The costuming was alternately amazing and terrible; the very cool bits involved a Jacobean gown designed to bring to mind a 1950's housewife dress and an ingenue-boy wearing a sweater-vest under his frock coat, the terrible bits involved sausage curls and purple ruffles and calico. WHY GOD WHY. Duke Macbeth got a fabulously pimpin' coat, though. I am not sure whether the Glinda outfit counts as amazing or terrible, or maybe both! The scenery was also pretty opulent, but the play itself, while often hilarious, just was not sexy enough. When you are doing Jacobean tragedy I tend to feel that dark and sinister sexiness is a must. Farce is great, but . . . there is such a thing as too much (I know, you never thought you would hear me say that.)
And while I'm here talking about The Theater, I am just going to put in a shout-out to my favorite play of all time, Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not For Burning, which I just reread and found that I still love with the fire of a thousand thousand suns. It's about logic and reality and wonder and words and why on earth someone would walk into a courthouse and demand to be hanged (putting everyone to terrible inconvenience in the process). "What greater superstition is there than the mumbo-jumbo of believing in reality?" is one of my favorite quotes ever, also. Basically it is a joy from start to finish, not to mention hilarious, and everyone should read it who does not mind twisty verse.
The play, for the record, was Women Beware Women, which I read for class last spring. The DEATH BY FLAMING PROJECTILE MOLTEN GOLD did not disappoint! Nor did Hera descending from the clouds like a hilariously murderous Glinda the Good Witch, nor did everyone falling over and dying in agony and shouting "MURDER, FOUL MURDER" while Duke Macbeth looked very put out and complained that this play made no sense at all. I did not remember the bit where the priest got gorily stabbed in the neck with his own cross, so possibly they put that in as an extra awesome bonus! I am not complaining.
The costuming was alternately amazing and terrible; the very cool bits involved a Jacobean gown designed to bring to mind a 1950's housewife dress and an ingenue-boy wearing a sweater-vest under his frock coat, the terrible bits involved sausage curls and purple ruffles and calico. WHY GOD WHY. Duke Macbeth got a fabulously pimpin' coat, though. I am not sure whether the Glinda outfit counts as amazing or terrible, or maybe both! The scenery was also pretty opulent, but the play itself, while often hilarious, just was not sexy enough. When you are doing Jacobean tragedy I tend to feel that dark and sinister sexiness is a must. Farce is great, but . . . there is such a thing as too much (I know, you never thought you would hear me say that.)
And while I'm here talking about The Theater, I am just going to put in a shout-out to my favorite play of all time, Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not For Burning, which I just reread and found that I still love with the fire of a thousand thousand suns. It's about logic and reality and wonder and words and why on earth someone would walk into a courthouse and demand to be hanged (putting everyone to terrible inconvenience in the process). "What greater superstition is there than the mumbo-jumbo of believing in reality?" is one of my favorite quotes ever, also. Basically it is a joy from start to finish, not to mention hilarious, and everyone should read it who does not mind twisty verse.
