Weekend of culture
Apr. 18th, 2004 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gogmagog...ugh, I think I'm starting to come down with some nasty respiratory bug. At the moment I feel like a zombie, only less lively.
On Friday, as a reward for having finished all three of my paper drafts due this week, I went to the UMKC theatre production of Henry V. (I got a free ticket through the Honors program.) It was directed by Barry Kyle, who worked as a former associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Globe Theatre, and is currently on an arrangement where he spends 18 weeks a year here at UMKC.
What did I think of the production? Well, it was the only version of Henry V I've ever seen, but my first impression was...very, very gay. Henry spent about half of the play shirtless (very nice abs, BTW), two long scenes in the first half were played with every guy shirtless, and there was a lot of wrestling and grappling in the battle scenes. (It was sorta distracting.) It was also a bit more avant-garde than I had expected - I did know that they were using a group of eight or nine women for the Chorus rather than one guy (a la the original Greek chorus), but I wasn't necessarily expecting the medieval surcoats over army fatigues. Still, the mesh of medieval and modern worked quite well, and it managed to make the play quite relevant to current events. After all, the play is about a leader who picks a war with another country, to be fought in that coutnry, in order to make money and to distract his people from problems at home, and with his government specifically. Of course, Shakespeare's so good that no matter what setting you put his plays in, they always seem relevant. (There's a reason he's the grand poobah of English literature.)
I also think it's quite noteworthy how certain scenes that come off interesting when you read the play - such as the scenes with lots of historical names and such - are sort of boring when you see it performed. And conversely, scenes that are lackluster, though funny, when reading the play become uproariously funny when you see it performed (such as the scene where Flewellyn beats Pistol about the head with a leek).
Then today, after playing a buttload of Disgaea, I had to go to my coworker Tanna's senior recital. She was actually quite unconventional in her choices - while the first half was your typical Faure, Beethoven, Debussy, etc., the second half was more popular songs like the Beatles, Elton John and Time Rice's Aida, and Chicago. And she's a really dynamite singer, so it was pretty enjoyable.
It was also sort of an interesting blast from the past because it was at St. Francis Xavier Church. I actually went to the associated elementary school (through 7th grade, when I left for homeschooling) though it closed last summer under suspicious circumstances. For eight years I went to that church several times a month, but I hadn't been there in about eight years or so. So it was a bit of a nostalgia-fest.
And after all, I HAD to appreciate the utter wrongness of the Cell Block Tango from Chicago being performed in a Catholic church. XD
On Friday, as a reward for having finished all three of my paper drafts due this week, I went to the UMKC theatre production of Henry V. (I got a free ticket through the Honors program.) It was directed by Barry Kyle, who worked as a former associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Globe Theatre, and is currently on an arrangement where he spends 18 weeks a year here at UMKC.
What did I think of the production? Well, it was the only version of Henry V I've ever seen, but my first impression was...very, very gay. Henry spent about half of the play shirtless (very nice abs, BTW), two long scenes in the first half were played with every guy shirtless, and there was a lot of wrestling and grappling in the battle scenes. (It was sorta distracting.) It was also a bit more avant-garde than I had expected - I did know that they were using a group of eight or nine women for the Chorus rather than one guy (a la the original Greek chorus), but I wasn't necessarily expecting the medieval surcoats over army fatigues. Still, the mesh of medieval and modern worked quite well, and it managed to make the play quite relevant to current events. After all, the play is about a leader who picks a war with another country, to be fought in that coutnry, in order to make money and to distract his people from problems at home, and with his government specifically. Of course, Shakespeare's so good that no matter what setting you put his plays in, they always seem relevant. (There's a reason he's the grand poobah of English literature.)
I also think it's quite noteworthy how certain scenes that come off interesting when you read the play - such as the scenes with lots of historical names and such - are sort of boring when you see it performed. And conversely, scenes that are lackluster, though funny, when reading the play become uproariously funny when you see it performed (such as the scene where Flewellyn beats Pistol about the head with a leek).
Then today, after playing a buttload of Disgaea, I had to go to my coworker Tanna's senior recital. She was actually quite unconventional in her choices - while the first half was your typical Faure, Beethoven, Debussy, etc., the second half was more popular songs like the Beatles, Elton John and Time Rice's Aida, and Chicago. And she's a really dynamite singer, so it was pretty enjoyable.
It was also sort of an interesting blast from the past because it was at St. Francis Xavier Church. I actually went to the associated elementary school (through 7th grade, when I left for homeschooling) though it closed last summer under suspicious circumstances. For eight years I went to that church several times a month, but I hadn't been there in about eight years or so. So it was a bit of a nostalgia-fest.
And after all, I HAD to appreciate the utter wrongness of the Cell Block Tango from Chicago being performed in a Catholic church. XD
