“A Delicate Balance” – Edward Albee
“Theatre Drama“
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
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Tag: Katharine Hepburn
November 11, 2018
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
November 12, 2016
“Medea” – Euripides
“Medea“ (1898)
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catching up on my Greek tragedies
for a course I’m following online, I
happened upon this marvel
Medea, by Euripides, was written
in 431 BCE, the next significant
playwright in world history was
Shakespeare, the Dark Ages had
been “Dark” indeed, it took a
Renaissance, in fact a new
flowering of Greek and Roman
arts and institutions to get us
moving forward again, you’ll
notice how much of Euripides
there is in Shakespeare, not to
mention in the French Classicists,
Racine and Corneille
none of these, incidentally, have
yet been equalled, never mind
surpassed, except by maybe
Anton Checkov, the superb
Russian playwright
Zoe Caldwell won the 1982 Tony
Award for best actress for her
incarnation of Medea, she was
up against Katharine Hepburn
and Geraldine Page, no less,
among other distinguished
luminaries, this is, in other
words, no ordinary performance,
watch her turn a mere script,
however incandescent, into a
set of spoken arias worthy of
the most celebrated divas
everyone else in the play is also
strong, excellent, impeccable
note the application of the three
unities, of time, place, and action,
there is no set change, everything
takes place within 24 hours,
according to the dictates of the
very plot, the action surrounds
the expulsion from Corinth of
Medea and her two, and Jason’s,
sons, the restrictions of the form
put the tension, the drama, utterly
in the hands of the poet, the
success of the work depends not
on stunts, special effects, but on
words, poetry
Aristotle says in his “Poetics“,
section I, part VI, “The Spectacle has, indeed, an
emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts,
it is the least artistic, and connected least with the
art of poetry. … Besides, the production of
spectacular effects depends more on the art
of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.”
the three unities have no room,
therefore, for “Spectacle“, their
product must be reflections of
the poet’s humanity, heart,
straight through, if s/he can,
to ours
Richard
May 26, 2014
“Music”
“Music“ (1895)
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not for lack of imagination, lately, but for,
rather, lack of confidence, the complaint
of any would-be poet, the complaint of
any proponent of oneself, one’s persona,
one’s own, however benign, however even
benevolent, ideas, I retreated into myself,
surrendering to forthright inspiration for
any, elusive enough, courage
inspiration, through its usual unsuspected
channels, and as ever categorically, gave
me, reliably, “Music“, Klimt‘s ineluctable
masterpiece, not even for its iconic image,
but for its transcendental comment on
art’s interpretive counterpart, music
world’s meld
a “magical mystical miracle” happens, as
Katharine Hepburn, in her utterly
enchanting movie, “Summertime“,
would have it, irrepressible as ever
I had to share
Richard
psst: note the juxtaposition of contrasting
colours, patterns, impressions, note
the Baroque presentation of Classical
imperatives, touched with Romantic
sensibilities, kicking off, not
incidentally, Modernism
January 24, 2013
“Wait Until Dark”
“Wait Until Dark” out-Hitchcocks Hitchcock,
this is not an unremarkable feat
the director, Terence Young, had already
managed the early James Bond films,
“Dr. No“, “From Russia with Love“,
“Goldfinger“, and so had already
achieved noteworthy experience,
not to mention acclaim
here he delivers perhaps the most satisfying
suspense film ever
Audrey Hepburn is again more than luminous,
she claims again, following so many impeccable
performances, her inviolable spot as a veritable
legend and immortal goddess of art, though she
loses again the Oscar, this time to the other
incandescent Hepburn
she chooses all her own clothes for the movie,
incidentally, in Paris
Alan Arkin has been equalled only recently, to
my mind, as a villain, by Heath Ledger‘s Joker
in “The Dark Knight“, a much less convincing,
however, movie, Richard Widmark was pretty
nasty too, come to think of it, in 1946’s “Kiss
when quizzed on why he didn’t get a nomination,
one, one would think, he should’ve had in the
bag, he replied, “You don’t get nominated for
being mean to Audrey Hepburn!”
gotcha
or touché, as we say in French
you’ll notice that the entire movie takes place
in one setting, a restriction imposed by the
fact of being originally a play, which must
abide such constraints, see “Give ’em Hell,
however, having been raised in French I fully
subscribe to the Classical imperatives of unity
of time, unity of place, unity of action, which
this play delivers in spades
the impositions, when masterfully maneuvered,
deliver entertainment of an even more impressive
order, see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for
another celebrated such instance
when “Wait Until Dark” was first screened lights
were darkened “to the legal limit” during the
climactic scene
even in your well-lit viewing room, even over
forty years on, think of it, you’ll still need to
hold onto your seat, pacemaker
Henry Mancini, however unlikely here, though
not especially ineffectively, does the music
in the last scene he’s heartstoppingly hot
enjoy
Richard
October 26, 2012
“The Trojan Women” – Euripides
the purpose of any art essentially is to either
inform or entertain, preferably both together,
therefore comedy would be associated with
entertaining whereas tragedy with informing
and, as such, this last would be perhaps more
intellectually demanding, so be it
the strength nevertheless of great tragedy is in
its level of delivering immediacy and fascination,
which is to say entertainment, of great comedy
its obverse, insight
“The Trojan Women” was written in 415 BC by
Euripides, a tragedian at the very summit still,
2400 years later, count them, of remarkable
historical achievement
the war with Troy had taken place a full 800
hundred years earlier, Homer had written the
alternate Bible to our Western civilization,
“The Iliad“, still with Proust to my mind the
very summit of our Occidental accomplishment,
resonating across the ages as powerfully as
even the pyramids, extraordinary to read,
from about, again count them, astounding
millennia, nearly unimaginable centuries,
850 BC
Helen had been abducted from Sparta, according
to that side of the story, by Paris, the son of King
Priam of Troy, she had been whisked away not
unwillingly according to that prince of that city,
from where she became known to us as Helen of
Troy, rather than of her original Sparta
the Trojan War ensued
the Trojans were creamed by the Achaeans, the
Greeks, the Spartans, interchangeable terms,
under Menelaus, king of Sparta, and his brother,
Agamemnon, older brother, and king of Mycenae,
the greater incorporating kingdom
the Trojan women remain to pay the price of
war, after so many centuries still their horror is
vivid, nor do we need to look far for equivalent
modern instances, they were all slaughtered or
enslaved, ‘nough, or maybe not ‘nough, said
here we get perhaps the best interpretation
we’ll ever see, with a cast we’ll probably not
in a long while again put together – Katharine
Hepburn in perhaps her greatest role – “Once
I was queen in Troy”, she says, and you will
profoundly believe her – Vanessa Redgrave
doesn’t get ever much better as she reaches
chthonically, which is to say from the very
entrails of her earth, her soul, for a cry of
anguish you are not likely to ever forget –
Geneviève Bujold, a mad Cassandra, and
Irene Papas, the very incarnation of the
most beautiful woman in the world
all tear up the screen in their moments,
leaving you breathless and helpless before
their art and evocative power, only Helen,
because of her beauty, insidiously manages
in the story to reasonably comfortably
survive, making mincemeat meanwhile
out of her big bad, he would have it,
Menelaus
Helen had been the gift to Paris, who’d had
to choose among the goddesses, Hera, Athena,
Aphrodite, which of these was the most
beautiful, but only when Aphrodite had bribed
him with the gift of the most beautiful woman
in the world instead of from either other deity
power and glory, had he chosen Helen
the other two of course reponded with the
devastation at Troy, Olympians were not prone
to be easy, Christian mercy would find in that
pagan unequivalency propitious ground
wonderful rendering of the traditional Greek
chorus – the Greek version of back-up girls,
“doo-wop, doo-wop” or “she loves him, she
loves him” – commenting on the tempestuous
story
one of my favourite ever films
Richard
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