It's Not A Morality Play, It's An Amorality Play
I am returned from squeeing at The Revenger's Tragedy like a mad squeeful thing specializing in squee. So brilliant, especially their cross-gender casting . . . the incredible degree of poise necessary to pull off a black comedy . . . the blinged out New Romantic/Clockwork Orange aesthetic for the villains (which would be, er, nearly everyone) and . . . this unique atmosphere that broke down the boundary between audience and spectacle and made everyone feel as if they were in on some great joke, by virtue of just being in the room. Intimacy and familiarity and the most wicked shared sense of humor.
To get ahead of myself slightly:
GUIL: Wasn't that the end?
PLAYER: Do you call that an ending? -with practically everyone on his feet? My goodness no--over your dead body!
GUIL: How am I supposed to take that?
PLAYER: Lying down. (He laughs briefly and in a second has never laughed in his life.) There's a design at work in all art--surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.
GUIL: And what's that, in this case?
PLAYER: It never varies--we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.
GUIL: Marked?
PLAYER: Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they can reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.)
- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
In a bid to make us feel even more special about being revenge tragedy fangirls, they left us a note on our seats for the second performance of the day: detailing the history and significance of bringing Shakespeare's contemporaries to the stage, how they parallel what we tend to think of as modern, edgy entertainment (why yes, The Sopranos was name-dropped along with Dexter and a few others), more of that wicked shared sense of humor, and a little hand-written note that hoped we liked both the plays. They are good, innovative people, the people who run the American Shakespeare Center at Blackfriars.
Good people. Who all end up dead at the final curtain, heh.
Soon: I will obsess over architecture for your entertainment, instead of Jacobean drama. It will be a refreshing change, I'm sure.
To get ahead of myself slightly:
GUIL: Wasn't that the end?
PLAYER: Do you call that an ending? -with practically everyone on his feet? My goodness no--over your dead body!
GUIL: How am I supposed to take that?
PLAYER: Lying down. (He laughs briefly and in a second has never laughed in his life.) There's a design at work in all art--surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.
GUIL: And what's that, in this case?
PLAYER: It never varies--we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.
GUIL: Marked?
PLAYER: Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they can reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.)
- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
In a bid to make us feel even more special about being revenge tragedy fangirls, they left us a note on our seats for the second performance of the day: detailing the history and significance of bringing Shakespeare's contemporaries to the stage, how they parallel what we tend to think of as modern, edgy entertainment (why yes, The Sopranos was name-dropped along with Dexter and a few others), more of that wicked shared sense of humor, and a little hand-written note that hoped we liked both the plays. They are good, innovative people, the people who run the American Shakespeare Center at Blackfriars.
Good people. Who all end up dead at the final curtain, heh.
Soon: I will obsess over architecture for your entertainment, instead of Jacobean drama. It will be a refreshing change, I'm sure.