Sunday, July 16, 2006

Woman in the Dunes

Went to the Princess to see Woman in the Dunes by Teshigahara. Madame wanted to see it too but thought it would be next week, so she left for a weekend at a cottage in the far north with women friends (as they are wont to do). And I would have missed it too out of solidarity, and inertia, but it was so hot that the idea of a couple of hours in air conditioning was very appealing. Had a glass of water before the five-minute walk to the Princess and an iced tea on arrival in a pronounced sweat. Sparse audience consisting mostly of lone men -- hoped the promise of eroticism hadn't attracted the wrong type -- hoped I didn't look the wrong type -- took consolation from the T-shirt I wore, Isabella's, which said "Festival of Art & Spirit" and "St. Jerome's University" on the other -- obviously I was there for the spiritual aspects of the film.
Not long into the film realized my mistake in watering myself so generously. But I will say this -- nothing makes you concentrate on plot points so much as the urgent need to piss -- it was an education, calculating how much it could reasonably go on, and with all those shots of sand blowing in the wind, collapsing, sifting, the answer was -- I just had to make a trip. And when I came back, I realized I'd just missing the third act turning point -- something had happened, the woman was in pain, the villagers were moving her -- anyway, that was it.
It made me think of Beckett's Act without Words I which I watched a few weeks ago -- sand, confinement, scarcity of water, false hopes, even the scissors. I wonder if there is a relation. Some fellow on Amazon dismisses the Kobe Abe novel that was the basis of the film as "derivative" of Kafka's The Castle. This is like saying I am derivative of my parents. Or that I look like somebody else. Of course I am. And I do. Everything has a genealogy, even if it is accidental.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Yes or No!

Just noticed an article in the UW Student Newspaper, Imprint, on MTSpace Theatre, and its artistic director, Majdi Bou-Matar. Of particular interest (to me, anyway) is the reference to this fall's production of Yes or No! with script by playwright Douglas Campbell, that is to say, myself, and not the famous Canadian actor of the same name. (There is a mistake in the article -- the writer has doubled the size of the cast -- there is one Canadian couple and one Yugoslav couple.) We have a cast. Rehearsals start next week -- I should say development, because Majdi uses a lot of improvisation in his process, and my script will be a kind of rough guide. When he said this after the final audition, I gave a laugh which came out like a whimper, which earned me a hug from the actor next to me. And Iva said "Then you'll have two plays!". Iva is recently from Macedonia, so we have one speaker of the language formerly known as Serbo-Croatian, when we'd wanted two, but there are Serbian language tapes at the KPL, so I'm sure Gary will be okay. Performances will be at the Registry Theatre.



October 25 - 30, 2006 Yes or No! - at the Registry Theatre, Kitchener, Ontario
On the night of the Quebec referendum, two couples are drawn into a crisis of their own Yes or No! A comedy about sex, politics, identity and… Halloween!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition


Isabella will be at TOAE this weekend, purple section, booth 209. Be sure to visit her and bring lots of money. A deposed emir living in Nigeria has already expressed an interest in the picture at left (as well he might); unfortunately he does not have ready access to his considerable fortune, and Isabella politely declined the complicated financial arrangements he proposed. Nevertheless it's quite possible he and his retinue might fly in to Toronto for a short visit, so if you want to buy this piece (or indeed any of the pieces in the show; it's rumoured he has made offers to every artist exhibiting) then you'd better get down to Nathan Phillips Square bright and early. That's Isabella Stefanescu, booth 209, purple section (her booth is hard to miss. Her sister refers to it as "the castle". It is designed to withstand hurricanes. I believe it could survive a collision with a fully loaded 707.)

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Our Theatre: Too Kind?

Interesting article in This Magazine (July/August issue) on Canadian political theatre by this writer entitled "The Dangers of Playing it Safe: How kindness is killing Canadian political theatre". One example he gives is Tomson Highway who can't get productions of his plays because it's hard to find enough professional Aboriginal actors (and directors are afraid to use non-Aboriginals because they are "worried about being accused of 'cultural appropriation'"). I wonder about that; there is the concept of "color-blind casting" -- in the production of Our Country's Good by the UW Drama Dept that I saw earlier this years, the cast who doubled as convicts and English officers included one black woman, and the two aborigines were played by an East Asian and Indian student (I believe). And if you can translate Les Belles-soeurs into Scots or Yiddish -- well, what I am saying is, this is theatre! Tomson says it's okay! So do his plays!

The other example is My Name is Rachel Corrie which was given a secret reading in Toronto at an undisclosed location. (I know! How thrilling!)

Here is something from Hipparchia's Choice by Michele Le Doeuff. I don't know if it is apropos. But I have been to Aikido for the first time in two weeks, and Kilkenny intermittently in hand I transcribe from my favorite philosopher:
Over the last twenty years interest seems to have been concentrated on the theoretical possibility of destroying language and undermining all speech. Having started as a theoretical phenomenon, this focus soon became social; it became integrated into everyday relations between intellectuals. We were begged not to use old words, all of which were suspected of bearing within them the sedimented residue of oppressive enemy thinking, either 'bourgeois' or 'metaphysical', depending on the preferences of the person you were talking to. Words were thought to be saturated with 'naiveties' (which were themselves complicit in an order which had to be broken) and were accused of surreptitiously leading back to theories which, it went without saying, we had all agreed to rid ourselves of. In a consensus on reciprocal censorship we have reduced each other to silence.
and
Of course ordinary reference points can be criticised and commonly held ideas may be untoward. But it is one thing to discuss something step by step with another person, with his, her or our common liberty in view, and quite another to practise the intellectual terrorism which robs the other of speech.
Excuse me, I have been called to bed.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Oops

Deleted my blog. I will recover it. Over time ...

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Canada Day

Spent the afternoon and part of the evening with extended family that keeps on extending, most recently (and unexpectedly) from Eastern Europe to East Asia in my grand-nephew who arrived just three weeks prior to today, Canada Day, its father's eighteenth birthday. Our two mothers came for lunch at Isabella's sister's, as did their aunt; mixture of German and Romanian at the table but predominantly English. Wandered next door to my brother's to see the other nephew (the sensible one, that is to say, seven years old) and niece, and their swimming pool; then back to be serenaded on guitar and recorder by the teenage nephew and niece (the niece is sensible). And I don't know what possessed me but I think feeling guilty for always trying to edify the nephew, most recently with a DVD rental of Fellini's Amarcord (since the niece had a project on Fascism), which he watched to his credit with only a little complaining at the beginning -- but feeling guilty, as I said, I went to GenX and returned with Mars Attacks! which I thought would be a suitably escapist piece of entertainment for a rather blithe young man on his birthday. And all I can say is "Ack Ack! Ack Ack Ack!"; our heads almost exploded.
It's muggy. There was a too brief shower. Sounds of fireworks in the distance. And it's raining again.