the idea of winter approaching/accumulating uni work always instills in me some kind of desire to stop the clocks and create a blog. an effort which is usually reversed a few months down the line when I have forgotten my password, but what the heck. here goes.
a vague idea
i would like to cover things that interest me. woah- how innovative! like the average university going liberal 19-year-old this topic encompasses music, film, radio, then art, current affairs... i would like to see this more as a thinktank. blogs are the most self-indulgent expression of one's feelings anyway, an area for uninteruppted talk, a hope for someone to stumble across and what, actually read?
generally, i collect anything that entices me in my tracks, be that passport photos of some unknown, unmemorable boy found outside the union, a cd, an essay from an art exhibiton, a theatre programme. the two main functions of this will be: to force myself to go out of my way more to gain experiences that i can actually talk about, and, on a more practical note, to practise writing. excellent.
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last night i went to see 'four men and a poker game' at the northern stage (possibly the most conviniently placed, impressively educational insitution i use in newcastle). i regret to say that i was utterly disappointed by the performance. after having had a 3 hour workshop with the director earlier in the week, i was geared for engaging work.
before i elaborate on my criticism, however, the play needs some explanation.
'four men and a poker game' is a short play written by bertolt brecht, performed as a monolgue in 3rd person. it recounts a poker game in which 3 men lost all their possessions to the winner, who, even after schedueling a re-match, still wins. the defeated end up killing him by pushing him in the sea to drown, which is where the story ends.
there was no doubt, i believed this play to hold all the key elements to remedy a great brecht play. it is an engaging story which could be interpreted very politically (we were made aware of certain connections from articles set up around the area). it was set in an enclosed area (i would hasten to call it a stage), where audience seating had been propped together as if we were in a bar, immedietely removing the 'fourth wall' of the audience. as well as this, there was live music, in the form of a talented piano player who accompianied the speech. so interestingly enough, 4 out of 5 of all the elements needed to produce a brecht masterpiece were there. the one that was missing- entertainment. an aspect so crucial to any theatrical production, let alone a brecht piece, that it is not even worth considering without it. it was 40 minutes long but it dragged unbearably- the reason my description of the storyline is so vague is down to this reason precisely; i couldn't help but switch off every five minutes.
i realise that there are some fundamental aspects of a piece of theatre which, over the years, i have attuned to what i will find successful, and to give the play some credit, avoiding monolgues is one of them. after that, i think i will go out of my way to.
it's such a shame that a brecht play has never enlightened me, when that really is the sole aim of his playwriting. after seeing the appaling 'mother courage' at the york theatre royal a few years back with school, i was finally ready to give another director a chance, but no, i have been let down again! ah, if only i could speak german so i could see one in the berlin ensemble- that would be like seeing shakespeare at the globe, surely.
i did want to explore more today but got distracted for the last two hours in a debate on monarchy and royalism, so it will have to wait til the next time i have some important work to do.
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