Men in skirts, BG, Brecht and pending absence of S.O.
Just writing at the end of a nice evening at home watching "Troy" on DVD. Man, it was stupid. But fun, in a way. Being a classics geek, I just sat there annoyingly and said stuff like "you can't kill Menelaus" and "they didn't have blue fabric til much later" and "ooh, love the triremes". Geekiness is so much fun. When I was a teenager, I mourned the fact that cool eluded me, now I celebrate it. I am a geek. My friends are geeks. Geeks rock.
Struck me that 3000 years on, the world is more rather than less homophobic. Patroclus as Achilles "cousin"? yeah, right. Kissing cousin, perhaps. And he was a real wuss, which is just plain historically inaccurate. And the first shot of Brad Pitt in bed with two women. Basically, this was purely a "despite what you may have read, Achilles likes girls" shot, in my opinion. And I don't think this is just my slash preference showing - the relationship between P and A was just woeful, and there's so much more to it in Homer, and it would have been more dramatically compelling, and, Jesus Christ, it's one of the great love stories. Why fuck with it?
Orlando Bloom isn't much of an actor, but he sure is pretty. I thought he would have been better cast as Helen. Talk about a face that could launch a thousand ships and burn the topless towers of Ilium. Good to see him using his LOTR archery skills though. I wonder if that's on his CV now under "Other Skills".
Basically I was pissed off throughout by alterations to the Iliad which made the story lamer rather than more effective. They replaced the worship of the gods with the desire for fame and glory - I guess that's what Hollywood understands these days. But if you're going to go that way, you need to address hubris, or overweening pride. Because otherwise there's a mishmash. Becuase everyone wants glory. Who deserves it? Achilles isn't remembered for his last minute humanity, as in the film. He's remembered for killing folk, for sulking in his tent while his lover fought in his place, and for dragging Hector's body around the walls. What was the message we're supposed to take away? Kill people, and you'll be remembered? Great. Just what the world needs right now. So LAME.
Turned off Troy to see the last half hour of the movie-length trailer of Battlestar Galactica. Talk about a blast from the past.
Actually, this looked kind of cool, from what I saw. And I have to say, it made me feel kind of old, because I WORSHIPPED BG as a small child when the old series was airing. I used to watch it with my Dad before my parents separated. I even had an LP copy of "Peter and the Wolf" narrated by Lorne Greene (sp?) who originally played Adama. I think the guy who played Apollo was perhaps my first ever crush (and Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard, and I can't believe I'm admitting to THAT in public either).
I'm trying not to get hooked into any more tv shows, because as the year progresses I will have less and less time to watch, and I always end up rehearsing in the evenings or working, and I'll just end up missing it. But it looked kind of cool, and I've been weak for Sci-fi tv, ever since watching BG and Blake's 7 with my dad. Kind of bonding. So, I don't know.
Tony is off to Wellington tomorrow for A MONTH, because he's directing a play (Bedbound by Enda Walsh) up there. I'm feeling a bit blue about it, even though I actually quite like having the house to myself and going to bed at all hours, and doing WHATEVER the HELL I want. But we've been having a really lovely time lately, one of those times when you just kind of get really into synch. We tend to move in and out of these phases, so it's a bummer to lose the time when we're at our closest. Oh well, not long, I guess, and we'll get there again. Marriage is such a weird institution.
I've got to spend tomorrow boning up on Brecht and Piscator, because I'm lecturing at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art (NASDA) on Monday. Political theatre movements of the twentieth century. I fucking love Brecht. Then on Thursday I'm giving their first year class the first of a four-week lecture series on Naturalism and Realism in the theatre. I'm very fond of that as a subject, simply because it's so taken for granted now, and it was so revolutionary when it first started, with Antoine and such.
I find it so fascinating that the revolutionary theatre ALWAYS gets sucked into the mainstream, come what may, because there's a certain kind of economic reality that dictates theatre, because it's in the end a product for an audience, and if no one sees it, then it has no effect. So its political effect relies on its ability to please, and those things are so totally at odds, except on rare occasions. It's the ongoing paradox of politics in theatre. How to be political, and revolutionary, but not so much that you lose your middle-class audience. Which sometimes makes me think that political theatre is just a contradiction that can't be reconciled. Not sure. I'll see what I feel like after Monday and Thursday.
Man, I feel really energetic just now, I could ramble on for hours. Or, I could go and clean my house. Or, I could try and write something. Yeah, I think I'll try and catch the wave.
bye everyone!
Struck me that 3000 years on, the world is more rather than less homophobic. Patroclus as Achilles "cousin"? yeah, right. Kissing cousin, perhaps. And he was a real wuss, which is just plain historically inaccurate. And the first shot of Brad Pitt in bed with two women. Basically, this was purely a "despite what you may have read, Achilles likes girls" shot, in my opinion. And I don't think this is just my slash preference showing - the relationship between P and A was just woeful, and there's so much more to it in Homer, and it would have been more dramatically compelling, and, Jesus Christ, it's one of the great love stories. Why fuck with it?
Orlando Bloom isn't much of an actor, but he sure is pretty. I thought he would have been better cast as Helen. Talk about a face that could launch a thousand ships and burn the topless towers of Ilium. Good to see him using his LOTR archery skills though. I wonder if that's on his CV now under "Other Skills".
Basically I was pissed off throughout by alterations to the Iliad which made the story lamer rather than more effective. They replaced the worship of the gods with the desire for fame and glory - I guess that's what Hollywood understands these days. But if you're going to go that way, you need to address hubris, or overweening pride. Because otherwise there's a mishmash. Becuase everyone wants glory. Who deserves it? Achilles isn't remembered for his last minute humanity, as in the film. He's remembered for killing folk, for sulking in his tent while his lover fought in his place, and for dragging Hector's body around the walls. What was the message we're supposed to take away? Kill people, and you'll be remembered? Great. Just what the world needs right now. So LAME.
Turned off Troy to see the last half hour of the movie-length trailer of Battlestar Galactica. Talk about a blast from the past.
Actually, this looked kind of cool, from what I saw. And I have to say, it made me feel kind of old, because I WORSHIPPED BG as a small child when the old series was airing. I used to watch it with my Dad before my parents separated. I even had an LP copy of "Peter and the Wolf" narrated by Lorne Greene (sp?) who originally played Adama. I think the guy who played Apollo was perhaps my first ever crush (and Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard, and I can't believe I'm admitting to THAT in public either).
I'm trying not to get hooked into any more tv shows, because as the year progresses I will have less and less time to watch, and I always end up rehearsing in the evenings or working, and I'll just end up missing it. But it looked kind of cool, and I've been weak for Sci-fi tv, ever since watching BG and Blake's 7 with my dad. Kind of bonding. So, I don't know.
Tony is off to Wellington tomorrow for A MONTH, because he's directing a play (Bedbound by Enda Walsh) up there. I'm feeling a bit blue about it, even though I actually quite like having the house to myself and going to bed at all hours, and doing WHATEVER the HELL I want. But we've been having a really lovely time lately, one of those times when you just kind of get really into synch. We tend to move in and out of these phases, so it's a bummer to lose the time when we're at our closest. Oh well, not long, I guess, and we'll get there again. Marriage is such a weird institution.
I've got to spend tomorrow boning up on Brecht and Piscator, because I'm lecturing at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art (NASDA) on Monday. Political theatre movements of the twentieth century. I fucking love Brecht. Then on Thursday I'm giving their first year class the first of a four-week lecture series on Naturalism and Realism in the theatre. I'm very fond of that as a subject, simply because it's so taken for granted now, and it was so revolutionary when it first started, with Antoine and such.
I find it so fascinating that the revolutionary theatre ALWAYS gets sucked into the mainstream, come what may, because there's a certain kind of economic reality that dictates theatre, because it's in the end a product for an audience, and if no one sees it, then it has no effect. So its political effect relies on its ability to please, and those things are so totally at odds, except on rare occasions. It's the ongoing paradox of politics in theatre. How to be political, and revolutionary, but not so much that you lose your middle-class audience. Which sometimes makes me think that political theatre is just a contradiction that can't be reconciled. Not sure. I'll see what I feel like after Monday and Thursday.
Man, I feel really energetic just now, I could ramble on for hours. Or, I could go and clean my house. Or, I could try and write something. Yeah, I think I'll try and catch the wave.
bye everyone!