It's only a paper moon, under a cardboard sky.

Thursday, july 30, 2009

A Streetcar Named Desire.

Tennessee Williams's Streetcar was really revolutionary in 1948 in two ways:

1) It showed how a play can really be influenced by film. Williams used a real setting, New Orleans, and described areas and routes you would actually take in New Orleans (Blanche's directions to her sister's house, and the real streetcar named Desire.), He also used a realistic set that called for a two room house with another house on top. and he also incorporated a lot of sounds that would be normal in everyday life. Like when we can hear Blanche in the bathtub singing, or the men playing poker in the kitchen while Blanche and Stella talk in the other room. These are realistic sounds you really would hear from the other room if you were actually in the specific room being used. so we have more incorporation of realism, along with some poetic realism because of how beautifully sad this story really is.

2) It definitely had an erotic force that had never been a part of theater before that point - "Desire." it's about sex as a really important motivation of human behavior, like the way Stella returns to Stanley, even though he had brutally hit her and broken the radio; it's what makes her keep coming back to him despite his aggressiveness and drunkenness....sex. At that time, the play was considered 'sexier' and 'dirtier'  that anything else. Then Hollywood bought them and made movies, but they were still considered sexy and dirty. But nevertheless, i really think there was an attraction to because of the idea within the play that williams had incorporated....that everyone is on a streetcar named desire. for something anyway. 

Not to mention, in 1948 (same year!), the Kinsey Report came out, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," which interviewed tons of guys of all ages about how often they had sex, when where, before marriage, etc, and the results were astonishing! And a couple years later, a sequel....female. So there was a lot of talk and thinking going on about sex.

 

And even all types of sex were represented in the play. At that time, i don't think anyone would have attempted to put gays on stage, but Williams got the idea out there with Blanche's dead husband (ugh, so sad). So all the ideas were there. Not to mention, Williams own sexuality...

Another common theme in the play, mortality. Blanche even sums it up saying "the opposite off death is desire." Which obviosuly is a huge issue for her...aging. heh, even the idea of sex leading to mortality is displayed in her, based on her previous actions in laurel. 

Nevertheless, she still finds herself trying desperately to live on, but in a more, settled down, home life kinda way. But we know right from the beginning, she'll never have that: She loses ("family debts") Belle Reve (their home), which means Beautiful Dream. her dream of old country home life is gone.

Some more attraction stuff:

-typically we think of the female as the object of male gaze. But in this, the male is the object of desire...Stanley. Though it may not be completely explicit, it's apparent how good looking he is supposed to be, that all women within the play know and feel that attraction when around him. It's there.

-There's also the idea that Blanche has pedophiliac tendencies..We know why she was fired from her teaching job back home. and then the scene with the newsboy pretty much just confirms it more, she repeatedly says "young young young young man" before she kisses this pretty much helpless kid. On the one hand, it can be seen as something disgusting and terrible, but I really read it a different way: I think Blanche still misses her ex-husband dearly. Stella mentions in the play that she literally worshipped him she loved him so much. And even despite what she finds out about him, which ultimately leads her to cause him to commit suicide, I think she is still caught up in trying to live that life she had as a sixteen year old. And is drawn to younger guys because she sees part of Allen in them. Not to mention, she wants to be young and dreams of having what has already gone. yeah. 

-There's a definite battle between Blanche and Stanley, not just in the way they both don't like each other. Theyre both objects of desire in different ways. Blanche is a southern Belle with a sexual beast underneath, while Stanley is an outright "gaudy seed-bearer" as he's described. but also, besides all that, there's a class war; the way Blanche continues to think she is above Stanley because she was raised above him, even though she has nothing now. She thinks she belongs to a class that doesn't exist anymore, but wants to hold onto some of those good values still. 

A few other quirky tid-bits

-Williams had a really big sense of humor. In fact, actors dreaded shows when Williams came to watch because he found his plays side-splitting funny. and he had this really distinctive laugh that would just would come out of the audience. He thought everthing that blanche said was hysterical, even though we find it so sad. Even the last thing she says "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" as the doctor offers his arm to her to take her to a mental hospital, Williams would laugh so hard because of her "activities" back at laurel with men. 

-In all of his plays, money is always some at stake or involved.

-another thing how in all his plays: a woman on the verge of insanity, or who cracks, or who is threatened with a lobotomy. Williams's sister, Rose, was mentally challenged. But even still he would always take her as his date to award ceremonies and whatnot, always made she she was in the best hospitals and had the best doctors, etc. He had a very close realitionship with ther and that really shows up in his plays. even the idea of "rose" comes up again and again. 

-Sad thing, he also kinda went crazy into old age trying not to go crazy because of her and actually died choking on a pill bottle after too many pills.

-Rose, his sister, claimed that their dad assaulted her and their mother had her lobotomized which was a traumatic experience for Williams. This shows up directly in the play: Blanche claims Stanley raped her the night Stella was in the hospital to have her baby. However, Stella has to beleive she's just crazy to get on in life. She has to raise this baby with Stanley, and decides to try to not think about it to get on. The way we know that it's the one thing that Blanche really isn't making up in her mind, because we know/see Stanley rape her, indicates to me that Williams believed his sister. ....Just a thought though.

-Tennessee Williams came to Duke about a decade ago to give a talk in Page auditorium. He brought onstage a GALLON jug of wine and drank the entire thing over the course of two hours talking to Duke. Clum went out to eat with him afterwards and said it was a horrifying experience. haha. 

-Eventualyl Williams moved away from realism into more poetical stuff and no one liked it, highly criticized him, yet he continued to crank out tons of plays every year til he died. 

-All of the great Blanches have been English. Vivian Lee, Rosemary Harris, etc. 

-it's an enormously popular play in gay culture. Some people have even interpreted Blanche has a gay man in a woman's body and she's become a fictional gay icon. I don't agree.

The show we saw was directed by an American, Rob Ashford, who typically does choreography (interesting) on Broadway (did thoroughly modern millie). At the Donmar last year he did Parade (show about race and ethnicity in the south, go Jason Robert Brown!), and they asked him if he'd like to do something there next year and he replied, Streetcar. Interestingly enough, Rachel Weisz (The Foutnain, the Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Enemy at the Gates, etc) also said she wanted to do Blanche....we're all set!

The Donmar Warehouse where we saw the play is a 240 seat theater, with a downstairs and a balcony, each with three rows of seats around three sides of the stage. It was literally like a big box. It's a magnet for some of the best directors and actors and shows, even though it's such a small theater, it's so prestigious. Every show is sold out way in advance and runs are always always always only six weeks long. They do good stuff.

and my, it was good stuff. As you can sorta tell if you read all that, I LOVE this play. I knew everyone else loved it too, but I had never read it in high school or anything though i thought about it a lot because I did a monologue a lot in high school that mentioned it. And I knew there was the famous line STELLLLAAAAAAA. but i guess i just never got around to it. anyway, i read it last week because I'm going to be playing Blanche in a scene next friday (more on that in a sec), and I was blown away by it. I youtubed some stuff on it and was so excited to see it on stage. It is heartbreaking. but beautiful at the same time. You don't hate Blanche at all despite her chronological lying and past life. You pity Stella who has to deal with EVERYONE all the time and does so well. 

It was great. so great. better tahn i could have pictured it to be. so good. i would go back and see it again if i had time it was that great. Rachel Weisz i thought did a wonderful job, Clum thought she was sick because her nose was running, but i didnt mind because she cried the whole show anyway. so sad.

cool stuff they did: The husband actually appeared onstage with Blanche a few times. When she was thinking about him, or hearing the Varsouviana in her head, he'd appear, in what he was wearing at the dance that night he killed himself (we assume). at one point, as she's breaking down, him and a whole lot of other people from the party that night come stage in formal attire and stand around her. it was intense. i liked it a lot. that wasnt scripted, but i think it worked well, because we could see in her mind. 

the set was really cool. they did the house sorta on a diagonal on the stage, and since the audience was all around the stage it was fine. 

I loved it!

Next week we have our last scene performances, and I'm really excited. Geoff and I gotta block this weekend but it'll be cool. I pu tthe youtube video up of what scene we're doing down below, but man it was so good in the play. I was sitting next to geoff so we were both like "here it comes!!" when we knew it was coming. literally blanche has been broken down by stanley, stanley has told stella everything he knows baout Blanche, bought her a one way ticket back to laurel, told mitch so mitch has stood her up, .....she's going crazy too. so I'm playing a crazy, drunk, falling apart, sad Blanche. Needless to say, i'm very excited. It'll be cool. Plus, I get to work with Matt again, who is the guy who worked with us on our musical theater pieces the other day, and i thought he was extremely helpful so im excited to see how that goes. 

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Afterwards, we hung around because chelsea is obsessed with Rachel weisz and wanted to get her autograph, but she never came out so we all went and got cheap fish and chips for dinner (some kids hadnt had any yet!) and then a lot of kids went to see Blood Brothers and Cameron and and I went and saw The 39 Steps. 

Based on John Buchan's novel of the same title and adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into a movie, The 39 steps was first produced on stage in April 1996. It's been at the Criterion Theatre (where we saw it) since September 2006. That theater was so old looking! haha. it's first production was done in 1874, but those pink velvet seats looked like they were original haha. very cute though. 

The cast was four people: 2 men, a woman, and Richard Hannay (Stephen Critchlow, Stephen Ventura, Natalie Walter, and John Hopkins [ahahahahha] respectively.) The two men play over 10 roles in teh ply and Natalie plays three women. IT WAS HILARIOUS. definitely a lot of slapstick whatnot. Not really much to it, Richard hannay is being chased by policemen for murdering a woman (of which he's not guilty of), and he's being chased by spies who are trying to kill him because he's finding out about them (they murdered her). at the same time he's this hot thing that meets women everywhere he goes, particularly one Margaret that he gets caught up with. Anyway, tons of fun, we laughed like the whole time. Not really much to it. haha, you know your preferences in theater are changing when you have nothing to say about a completely comedic show. It was really good though! just not as mindblowing as something that has a lot of purpose. but im glad i went.

Clum came up to me at the theater last night and said i should go see Shall We Dance, another Adam Cooper that came out at Sadler's Wells that's got great reviews and he said he thinks i'd like it becuase of all the dancing, haha, so we'll see if i can fit that it.

Friday, July 31, 2009.

We had our musical mock auditions in front of everyone....that morning! bleh. I was like jumping aorund to try and wake myself up. hard to not let your eyes glaze over that early in the morning....not good when youre trying to perform. anyway, i went third to last. so it was taty, robert, cameron, tyler, me, kristina, and ted. We'd sing through it and then they'd give us criticisms or encouragement or something to change and then we'd perform like  a part of it again. Taty did a song from Aida "the past is another land" and it was intense! her anger was awesome and even better when Matt helped her with it. Robert did "Not while im around" from sweeney, which he played, so of course he did well with that. great voice. cameron did "love i hear" from forum, which is quirky and funny so good for him. tyler did "i've never been in love before" from guys and dolls, which is so cute and pretty and she is cute and has a really pretty voice. so that was cute. haha. Matt tried to get her to do her giggle in it. haha. then i went. then kristina did a very operatic version of "My white knight" from the music man which was cool. and Finally Ted ended with "Lonely house" from street scene which was crazy good. Matt didn't have any criticisms for him. and told him he was profoundly talented and should really try the business so that was exciting. I cant wait to see shows that have under the title "with Ted Caywood" haha. :)

Mine went well! :) I did Stars and the Moon, which Bob West said was a good song for me. and Matt was really glad that i had done everything he had encouraged me to do from rehearsal the other day, whcih made me glad. i was so worried he was going to be like "remember what we talked about doing the other day???" then he worked on some body stuff with me because i didn't move my feet at all, whcih i didnt notice, i never have really had an issue with sway stepping on stage (a big no-no), but he said it almost got unnatural that i didnt take a step or anyhting and he's right. so that was good. and some bending over at the waist a lot, which i have always done, i was criticized for that for my senior year competition monologues so i gotta work on too. anyway, everything was completely constructive so that was really good. he had good stuff to say. then he had been sing the last section of the song again and i think it went better than when i had originally done it so that was good. anyway, i'm really glad i did it. i still get so nervous about singing by myself, shoulda trained more i know, but i'm glad i force myself to do stuff like this because it ends up beinga lot of help. even though they did have anything to say about my singing, which may be good or bad depending on how you look at it, haha. anyway, it was fun. i was really happy after class. and ted said that was the best he's ever seen stars and the moon performed so that made me happy too. 

after that we got lunch and went back to langton close for thirty min and then we were off to Buckingham Palace. the staterooms are open for viewing only like 3 months out of the whole year and just started last week so i'm so glad the program landed on it. It was so beautiful!!! we got to see the grand netrance way, the grand stairs, a whole bunch of rooms where the queen receives guests (haha), and the ballroom. I liked the ballroom a lot. then we got to see a couple rooms with exhibits of gifts she'd gotten from other countries when she visited and a whole bunch of dresses/gowns she's worn over the years (some of them were SOOO pretty! i woulda worn a couple of them to proms in high school!) very pretty. we saw the dining room and whole bunch of other stuff. and then walked through some of the gardens in the back. lots of fun. we got the free audio guide tour (it was me, kyle, alex, ted, cameron, geoff, chelsea, and tyler) and we would all pusht he number and play at the same time to listen to the stuff at the same time and it was hilarious. because all nine of us would look up when the audio guide dude would say "look upwards to view the splendor of the gilded ceiling" so we would all start cracking up. it was a lot of fun.

then we split off and went different ways and I went with chelsea over to trafalgar square to do the National Portrait Gallery, which was on my list of things to do before i leave. it wsa really cool. i like portraits a lot. I kinda wish we still did portraits nowadays instead of photography. because a picture shows one moment of a person, how they were at that moment. but a portrait can show SO MUCH about a person, you can almost know what their entire life was like just based on a painting. There were tons! from Tudor/stuart portraits all the way to present, i really liked them all. 

And then off to the National to see .....the Black Album

Hanif Kureishi is one of the major english novelists, playwrights and filmmakers (some poetry too even) in the past 25 years. He writes primarily on one topic: 2nd generation asians (indians, pakastanis, etc), who were born in England. 

-in the 1950s and 60s Egnlish industries recovered from teh war and there was a huge, pretty much planned, migration from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Africa, and even the Caribbean to build up the labor force in England. 

-no duh, england had been predominantly white before that, so instantly there was a lot of racism and discrimination, particularly English vs Pakistani

-Kureishi's family had been relatively well off in Pakistan so they set up business in england and did fine. he dealt with racism but went to university nonetheless, and pretty much got into sex, drugs, and rock n roll, mega part of english society

-margaret thatcher came along in the 1980s and got rid of unions, denationalized railroads and mines, and pretty much created a socio-economic revolution. 

-The Black Album, is a book written in 1995 about 1989 England. The black album, is actually prince's album, who is an icon in teh book (and play). in 1988 the book The Satanic Verses had come out, whcih contained 70 pages spofing on Mohammed (making him out to be a clown and crook) and the founding of Islam. The writer, Salman Rushdie (an english citizen), pretty much had a death sentence on him because the Iranian leader was willing to pay anyone to kill him. then we have this intense revolution about hte freedom of expression etc etc.

-SO  the book was turned into a play by Kureishi. A middle class young man raised in Kent suburbs goes to University which puts him between western values and fundamental Islamic values. He's in a rooming house which a whole bunch of Islamic fundamental kids, but gets really close with a cultural studies professor who pretty much just teaches rock n roll culture. pretty much the kid, Shahid, has to pick which group he wants to be a part of of, and picks the rock n roll culture, and bluntly put, makes fundamentalism out to be crazy and stupid. 

*interesting fact: the five suicide bombers in london in July 2005 were English-born. didn't know that. it's a big issue here i guess. 

SOOOO...i didnt like the play at all for a lot of reasons. 

1) the acting. shiverrrr...

2) the script was too blocky. they'd be like the "protestors are coming" they'd come. they'd say some stuff. they'd leave two seconds later. and then the actors would discuss what just happened. it just wasn't realistic at all!. the shahid kid gets sick from drugs and alcohol and Riaz (a "crazy" religious fanatic) pretty much sits there and hugs him til he calms down and then Shahid's like "oh thank you so much Riaz. you saved my life." wait a second, you were dying two seconds ago and now you're completely fine????? i dunno, everything was just too abrupt and unrealistic.

3). finally Kureishi makes fun of ALL fundamental Islamic values in every single possible way he can, and i don't think that was an appropriate approach to take with this. Shahid went with the "normal, white english people" because the other guys were so crazy. but what bothered me was that it wasn't just that his friends were crazy, it was like ALL muslims are crazy. He jabbed at women's clothing, keeping their heads covered and trying to stay pure. he jabbed at having faith in anything and religion itself. he jabbed at everything. freedom of speech, i know. but i dont think ALL people are crazy for having faith and following faith and culture. Even one of the lines in teh play went something like"if you follow them, shahid, you'll stop thinking. do you want to think?" not all of them are crazy. i dunno. it really bothered me. he even had the kids think god was trying to tell them something through a cooked eggplant. i think everyone in my group was really angry at that point. yes, there are some that do crazy things, like blow themselves up and kill people, but not all the values are bad. if a woman wants to keep her head covered and not have sex before she's married because of her faith and culture, that if perfectly fine. great even. he made it out to be ridiculous. 

anyway, enough of that. it'll be a good play to talk about for my paper "role of drama in contemporary society" and then ill forget about it.

Today, i havent done that much yet. slept in, yessss. i think we're gonna go to camden market today to look around which should be fun. later i kinda wanted to see Coco before Chanel (movie with Audrey Tatou from Amelie that's not coming out in the US til september!) but i dunno if i'll be able to find anyone anyone to go with me.  anywho that's the plan.

Tomorrow we have a matinee, Phedre, and then the rest of the day will be spend on papers. today too. 

peace!

much love

becca