//British

Thee-ah-tah

“As far as raving mad men in power go, I like Richard III or Coriolanus better than King Lear…”

Saturday, R. and I ate brunch at The Pink Teacup then saw two one-act Edward Albee plays, “The American Dream” and “The Sandbox”, directed by Mr. Albee himself at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

Three minutes into “The American Dream”, I realized that I must have read the play but I didn’t remember any of the dialogue or the plot or anything significant. All I remembered were these boxes a character brought out on stage and I knew immediately what was in them. It’s an interesting conceit but it almost reads better than it plays. One of the characters seemed especially contrived.

I didn’t like Judith Ivey in the first play, though she is a hugely respected actor. It seemed like everyone else was talking to one another but she was talking to the audience. M. said maybe it was bad direction because all the characters kind of seemed to be in their own little world, but in a way that hurt the play instead of defining themselves.

“The Sandbox” was very, very short, maybe 10 minutes, but I liked it much better. It was surreal as well and quite funny, but the end was surprisingly touching. The poignancy kind of snuck up on you right before the lights went out. Lois Markle was exceptional in both plays.

R. said he’d heard that Albee was working on “The Sandbox” when someone commissioned him to write “The American Dream”. Honestly, that’s kind of how it felt watching them. One was real and one was for pay.

I forgot to tell you guys about seeing “King Lear” at BAM. It was directed by Trevor Nunn and Sir Ian McKellan (Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian) starred. Sylvester McCoy played the Fool and the whole time I kept thinking, Hey, Dr. #7 is doing Shakespeare! Oh, now he’s been hanged.

[He was not even close to being my favorite Doctor, but he was vastly better than Colin Baker. Jesus. If I were young now and watching the new series, I would have a die-hard crush on David Tennant (instead of Peter Davison, aka #5). Everyone loves #4 (Tom Baker) but show me anyone who had a crush on him!

As it is, the show is hard for me to watch now that they are openly acknowledging that The Companions are really "Companions" and not just friends. The episode with Sarah Jane was heartbreaking and the Doctor reveals that he suffers from what I call "the Vampire conundrum" which of course is eternal life wherein you endlessly watch all your loved ones die. I know it makes the characters more realistic and complex and interesting, but you know what, I liked it better when they were asexual and simple, fighting Daleks and making quirky British quips. Complexity and realism are fine for The Sopranos or The Wire or Ingmar Bergman movies. Please leave the Doctor alone.

He's a fucking Time Lord traveling through space and time in a TARDIS stuck in the shape of a police box because the chameleon circuit is broken. Where is the realism in that? It hurts my heart enough that somehow all the Time Lords were killed off (I missed that episode) and now he's the last one. Plus, he's on his, what, 11th incarnation? Does he have one more life left or is he magically going to get more? Didn't The Master take over someone's body for that same reason? Was it Nyssa's father? It's all fuzzy now.

Uh, okay. I didn't mean to geek out like that but apparently I have been repressing these very strong feelings about Dr. Who.]

SHAKESPEARE. KING FUCKING LEAR.

The show was completely sold out as soon as the tickets went on sale. R. was able to score tickets because he was still working at BAM, but even then had to pay for a BAM membership just to buy them.

We were front row center and the stage was not raised very high. I mean we could practically have touched the actors. As far as raving mad men in power go, I like Richard III or Coriolanus better than King Lear, but it was really well done. (A. and I saw both of those plays at BAM, starring Ralph Fiennes).

I read a review of this production of Lear where someone said the actor playing Cordelia made her too soft and subservient. I didn’t take Cordelia’s reaction as subservience, I took it as disbelief. It seemed like she felt Lear must know how much she loved him, so why participate in this silly and empty test alongside her conniving sisters? That’s what made his reaction especially tragic.

The most moving moment for me (other than the end, of course) was this ten seconds when the rational Lear surfaced for an instant. Sir Ian played it so beautifully, like this bell-tone moment of clarity, an intense but lightning quick flash of fear and sadness. He says:

“O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven;

Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!”

Then the madness reasserts itself and you know you will never see that sane man again, he’s drowned. It takes real skill to imbue two lines with so much longing and grief.

Before you think I’ve gone all hoity-toity high-brow on you, let me just leave you with: yes, Sir Ian took his pants off in the heath scene and he has nothing of which to be ashamed.

[ Topic Pop Culture, Ridiculosity | 1 Comment ]

Note to Europeans

I did not mean what I said earlier about you guys being assholes. My comment was purely for comedic effect. You know that I like a lot of you, especially the Brits. Really, a whole lot, the Brits.

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Just A Thought

You know what I’d like to see more of in my neighborhood? Asian people with British accents. That would be so awesome!

In high school we had a German exchange student who was Chinese! It was so crazy to hear her accent. Talk about confounding people’s expectations. I bet it was shitty for her in Sacramento because people used to ask me if I spoke English. Imagine if they asked her and she answered “Yes” sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger. How confused would those people be?

[ Topic Ridiculosity, Society | 1 Comment ]

Yes Sir. No Sir. Fuck You Sir.

Trying to escape the Hollywood and Highland mall is an astounding pain in the ass. The first two elevators heading down into the bowels of the parking garage were packed full, the second, quite surprisingly, with two large racks of clothing and a couple of blandly apologetic attendants to said clothing. When the third arrived, even though it was mostly full, my friend and I made some room for ourselves. The doors hadn’t shut before our fellow elevator-mates were cracking wise about sardine packed elevators. My friend, in his crisp British accent, said “You should have seen the last one.” And then, an amazing thing happened: Not one, not two, but at least three people instantly mocked him and gleefully aped the way he said “last”.

Really? Had that really just happened? No. No way. Yes! It totally did! An elevator full of middle class, mall-going, adult-human-beings had just totally made fun of my friends’ accent! Have the British pissed us off lately? I thought it was the French, and even then, I thought their new president was making inroads. Seriously. Really?

In any case, I started thinking on the way home….I never really grew up in a time when people said “Ma’am” and “Yes Sir” (to quote a song by Spoon of which I’m rather fond). And yet, I wonder if maybe the folks who are nostalgic for such a time are onto something. Have we really become such an ardently belligerent and crass society? Based on the number of women who marvel when I hold a door open for them, I wonder if maybe we have. And maybe that’s why I was so shocked the week after 9/11 when people all seemed so polite in traffic. Did I just not know what I was missing? And does it take a national tragedy to make people behave with some decorum in public? I have no idea, but I’d say we could probably take a couple steps towards civility without becoming parodies of Leave it to Beaver.

I have no idea as to how we would formulate a solution to the problem. Raising the national IQ level might help. Can we teach it in schools? Maybe we get a mascot? Free drugs for anyone who says nice things to strangers! Obviously another terrorist attack would do the trick, but really, terrorist attacks are almost totally not good, and the meager upside only seems to last for a week anyway. There’s gotta be a fun solution here, it’s just not bubbling to the surface right now.

PS. Has anyone seen door-to-door Christmas caroling anywhere but television commercials lately? Where the fuck is our saccharine spirit!?

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