(no subject)
So would someone with a paid/permanent LJ mind linking to this just as an experiment... I want to see how this whole pingback this they announced in the news post works!
Maybe I should post something so you have a reason to link to it :P
(by the way, speaking of news... or not really but speaking LJ and changes has anyone else noticed recently the link in all emailed comments to "View the entire thread this comment is a part of"? That wasn't there before was it? Either way it is more useful than I can possibly say when trying desperately to remember which conversation that one word comment was part of *g*)
ANYWAY
Today we visited miretne (for wedding things) and had tea with her and my brother which was rather lovely (I had a Brioche Bread & Butter Pudding ♥ even if I did pull out all of the icky raisins *coughs*)
Last night however was The Taming of the Shrew which I was worried about a little (after all it's a fairly unpleasant play in places) and anyway I was very tired and feared I might fall asleep.
I needn't have worried on either count really. It was a fantastic performance and yes it was uncomfortable but really if The Taming of the Shrew doesn’t make you a bit uncomfortable possibly you should be asking yourself some questions (or the production is probably a very different one *looks at Ten Thing I Hate About You*)
The Taming of the Shrew- RSC@the Novello
So Michelle Gomez was every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped. She's very good at physical... well I was going to ay comedy and she is but just at using her whole body when she's acting whether it's comedy or much more serious. Also she's really rather beautiful and looked fabulous in some of the costumes.
And while we're on the shallow bit 1) Bartholomew in the Christopher Sly bit made a lovely girl/fake!wife a 2) the guy playing Lucentio was rather cute and 3) Bianca was just gorgeous.
But the play itself?
Well it is an unpleasant play really especially with that speech at the end and the way Michelle played it was completely chilling and as if he had had her spirit broken entirely and the horror of Bianca and the widow was kind of perfect (and the way all the men seemed to agree was, again, chilling)
What I REALLY liked though was that at the beginning, the Christopher Sly part, the host was in fact a hostess... somehow it made the whole thing feel more like an object lesson and gave less opportunity for it to look like Petruchio was at all in the right. The way the hostess wandered through some scenes, remind you all the time that this was really a play within a play, was very clever too I thought.
I also though Petruchio was such a thoroughly horrible man, an incredibly cruel master, and really barely a step away from Christopher Sly was clever and a good decision.
The whole ensemble was, as always with the RSC, very good and they worked together well. I loved how they started acting to Christopher Sly very OTT and actor-ish and then slowly slid into a slightly more natural manner.
There was also a lot of clever "business"; a Pisa joke with a leaning tower of books in the background, a Paduan church that opened into a table and had a wedding cake in its dome etc. Plus the completely brilliant exaggerated Caribbean accent that "Lucentio's" father "Vicentio" put on just made me giggle madly...
(I ought to say at this point that I may have been COMPELTELY convinced that poor Tranio was head over heels in love with Lucentio but anyway)
So yes. A great performance and with Michelle Gomez at the head a performance that was both chilling and yet left me in no doubt that the ending was not a straightforward good ending.
Mind you. I was reminded, yet again, of how completely mental it is that some people take the end of Shrew as being Shakespeare somehow saying her taming is a good thing... that Katherina really means and SHOULD really mean all that stuff about a dutiful wife. I mean seriously?! First Shakespeare has her swear the sun is the moon and an old ma is a beautiful young maid (and happily switch those views the minute her husband tells her to) and then we're meant to think she actually in any meaningful way is serious or right in that final speech?
People are, quite frankly, mental.
Maybe I should post something so you have a reason to link to it :P
(by the way, speaking of news... or not really but speaking LJ and changes has anyone else noticed recently the link in all emailed comments to "View the entire thread this comment is a part of"? That wasn't there before was it? Either way it is more useful than I can possibly say when trying desperately to remember which conversation that one word comment was part of *g*)
ANYWAY
Today we visited miretne (for wedding things) and had tea with her and my brother which was rather lovely (I had a Brioche Bread & Butter Pudding ♥ even if I did pull out all of the icky raisins *coughs*)
Last night however was The Taming of the Shrew which I was worried about a little (after all it's a fairly unpleasant play in places) and anyway I was very tired and feared I might fall asleep.
I needn't have worried on either count really. It was a fantastic performance and yes it was uncomfortable but really if The Taming of the Shrew doesn’t make you a bit uncomfortable possibly you should be asking yourself some questions (or the production is probably a very different one *looks at Ten Thing I Hate About You*)
The Taming of the Shrew- RSC@the Novello
So Michelle Gomez was every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped. She's very good at physical... well I was going to ay comedy and she is but just at using her whole body when she's acting whether it's comedy or much more serious. Also she's really rather beautiful and looked fabulous in some of the costumes.
And while we're on the shallow bit 1) Bartholomew in the Christopher Sly bit made a lovely girl/fake!wife a 2) the guy playing Lucentio was rather cute and 3) Bianca was just gorgeous.
But the play itself?
Well it is an unpleasant play really especially with that speech at the end and the way Michelle played it was completely chilling and as if he had had her spirit broken entirely and the horror of Bianca and the widow was kind of perfect (and the way all the men seemed to agree was, again, chilling)
What I REALLY liked though was that at the beginning, the Christopher Sly part, the host was in fact a hostess... somehow it made the whole thing feel more like an object lesson and gave less opportunity for it to look like Petruchio was at all in the right. The way the hostess wandered through some scenes, remind you all the time that this was really a play within a play, was very clever too I thought.
I also though Petruchio was such a thoroughly horrible man, an incredibly cruel master, and really barely a step away from Christopher Sly was clever and a good decision.
The whole ensemble was, as always with the RSC, very good and they worked together well. I loved how they started acting to Christopher Sly very OTT and actor-ish and then slowly slid into a slightly more natural manner.
There was also a lot of clever "business"; a Pisa joke with a leaning tower of books in the background, a Paduan church that opened into a table and had a wedding cake in its dome etc. Plus the completely brilliant exaggerated Caribbean accent that "Lucentio's" father "Vicentio" put on just made me giggle madly...
(I ought to say at this point that I may have been COMPELTELY convinced that poor Tranio was head over heels in love with Lucentio but anyway)
So yes. A great performance and with Michelle Gomez at the head a performance that was both chilling and yet left me in no doubt that the ending was not a straightforward good ending.
Mind you. I was reminded, yet again, of how completely mental it is that some people take the end of Shrew as being Shakespeare somehow saying her taming is a good thing... that Katherina really means and SHOULD really mean all that stuff about a dutiful wife. I mean seriously?! First Shakespeare has her swear the sun is the moon and an old ma is a beautiful young maid (and happily switch those views the minute her husband tells her to) and then we're meant to think she actually in any meaningful way is serious or right in that final speech?
People are, quite frankly, mental.