Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibhes! I had the day offfff. Yessss. No, I didn't drink beer, though I am thinking of a gin and tonic later. I also didn't wear green. I did wear orange. No, I am not being an ironic hipster. My family--the English, the Irish, and the Scot--were all Protestant for many generations back. It's historical for me to wear orange, duh. I did make some corned beef and cabbage, too. Yes, I know, it's not really Irish...but it's goood. Except now my house smells like old people.
I got sucked into a video of cat vines, and someone on there pronounced compilation as com-pile-a-tion, which really got my panties in a twist. Almost as much as a dude that was speaking yesterday, who kept swallowing at inappropriate times in the middle of his sentences.
So, I accomplished nothing today, I was still in recovery mode. Thankfully the WWI boots do not seem to have caused too much foot pain. I think I was tired from seeing the sun so much. I don't drag my pasty skin out of my library lair enough, clearly. It is a short work week, but I have a lot to do, as well as a heritage preservation board meeting Wednesday (I'm the president this year. I've missed the last two. Do as I say, not as I do!), and then La Boheme on Friday evening. I want to squeeee about that, it's a favorite. I went through my "Oh how I wish I was a starving bohemian living in a slum in Paris" phase, before I realized that I like eating and I don't like slums. But I do still love that show, and I shall enjoy sitting in in my orchestra section seats listening to them sing about the bohemian lifestyle. :)
So, I had a semi-angry moment today. I have red hair, it happens. Not enough to, you know, smash anything, but enough for a wordy rant to form itself in my mind. Now, I love history. Obviously. For this much time and money and brain cells spent and yet to spend, I'd better love history. But I also LOVE theatre. I grew up performing, and honestly, if I didn't dislike slums so much, might have made an attempt at it. :) Despite the choice of joining the booming and lucrative field of history, my love of theatre has never lessened, and a lot of my free time is spent either seeing live productions, or watching them on PBS or BBC or wherever. I get very excited when I find good ones, and geek out about them to anyone who will listen. I *also* love, well, geeking. Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse (comics, not Katy. Ro-o-o-o-o-ar! See previous post), Tim Burton (especially Jack and Sally), Harry Potter, you get the idea. I never grew out of it, and at age 36, I don't think there's much chance of me "growing up." Imagine my joy when I find something that combines those two loves. SOMEHOW, and I have no idea how, I missed that Joss Whedon directed a modern take on Much Ado About Nothing. I got the movie from Netflix, and I adored it.
Apparently, not everyone else did, from reading the reviews. Ew, why are they talking like that, why would they do it in modern times, that clearly wasn't Italy, they are American, blah blah...all made by people who clearly DIDN'T GET IT, yet felt that they should force their opinion on the masses. I will be the first to confess that, as a historian, I prefer seeing the plays in the clothing and settings they were written for, but it is NOT necessary. These plays are timeless, that is the joy of them. Every year, the local company here does a Shakespeare in the Park, like in most major cities. It's free, everyone can come enjoy a picnic, and a little talk and pre-show, and then the play. That's super. 99.9% of the people love it. There always has to be that .1% though, and they are ALWAYS the talkers. No inside voices. Last year, the play was As You Like It, and it was done in a late 60's hippy setting, where they go back to nature and COMMUNE. It was wonderfully well done, but there was that .1% that had to make commentary. Sigh....
Yes, I get unnecessarily defensive about the works of Shakespeare (and Marlowe, and Jonson). They don't need me to defend them, of course, they stand on their own. I was lucky enough to have, all my life, been around the plays, been in the plays, been in love with the plays, and it dismays me when people dismiss them without actually trying to understand them. They don't recognize the characters, or the writers, or the audience of the time as real people, with the same vagaries of the heart as any of us.
Part of it is presentation, of course. We might speak English, as the Renaissance playwrights did, but we don't speak the same language. The dilemma...do you present it in the correct language, so that no one understands it, or do you present it in modern English, so the language is understood, but the myriad puns and verbal spars don't come through? You still get an entertaining play, but you don't get the level of enjoyment they must have felt at the beauty of the words. And then, when kids are forced to read the plays, which are not written to be read, I can understand why it makes them think they won't want to go see them performed.
Another issue...our jaded youth. To a generation that grew up on social media and the XBox, a play is booooring. So booorrring. So "gay." They don't learn to recognize people they know, great and flawed, in the characters. They don't know how to suspend reality for 2 hours, how to use their imagination, how to NOT pay attention to the 21st century and just slip into another time. They don't care what is going to happen between Hero and Claudio, or if Prospero will let the sailors live, they don't get indignant that Kate is having her spirit debased for a man, or that Cordelia has been wrongfully disinherited. They don't have the attention span to sit in a theater (or even in the park) for 2 hours and try to catch the nuances of a talented actor's face and voice. When an actor UNDERSTANDS the dialogue, and knows what emotion to convey behind them, there is nothing to compare...but they don't understand that, and their parents can't seem to teach them, because they didn't learn themselves. They don't conceive of the fact that these writers WERE human, they had and knew emotions, and that they were not always just names on a Cliff Notes page.
And you know, it's not "cool."
And THAT is why I get so happy watching young actors, actors of MY generation, actors like Tom and like Ben, who have mass market fan girl appeal, but who KNOW Shakespeare and are trained in Shakespeare and can convey the intracacies of the writing. If that star power can draw those squeeing young fan girls in to see plays like Coriolanus, plays that are not among the most popular of Will's work, but that have enduring and lasting meaning, then that is a GOOD thing. Some kids grow up to appreciate this art on their own, but I have absolutely nothing against drawing others in through sex appeal. Whatever it takes. I am fairly certain, though, that I was the only one in the theatre who got verklempt at Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus tearing up when he sends his family back to Rome before his death. I can't help it. He understood the emotion, and he conveyed the emotion brilliantly...AND grown men crying is my Kryptonite. Which would explain, again, why I have to blow my nose after Tom's Prince Hal tells Falstaff: "I do. I will." He doesn't just toss it out, unknowingly or pedantically. He knows that eventually it will fall upon him to send Falstaff away, and it will pain him greatly, but it will be unavoidable (and I once knew a very Falstaffian character, who left this world a couple of years ago, so that isn't helping my sinus-y cause any). It would explain why I cannot wait to see Benedict as Hamlet (oh how I wish I could see it live!), I have seen his brief readings of other pieces on You Tube, and I know he will be able to convey the complexity of that angry and grieved character brilliantly...and yes, girls will go to see it because it's Sherlock/Smaug/Khan (all wonderfully sexy by the way--yes, even the dragon. Sexy dragon), but they'll be exposed to a very heavy play dealing with murder, incest, mental illness, and suicide...you know, high culture.
Anyway, that was a long rant. Yes, I am clearly fully prepared for my professorial career. Now, can I keep this going into some paper writing? Maybe? Possibly? Le Pays des Yllinois is waiting for me to do it justice. I feel close to the 18th century residents after all these years, I feel like if I don't do something soon, they'll judge me and find me wanting. Again, though, I keep finding myself picking up my old books on the Cathars, and on the Lollards, and female artisans, and...and...
Oh, and the patterns for the WWI nurse came out perfectly. I will scan them this week at work and post them. And Polyester Abominations would make a great band name, by the way.
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