Friday Poll!
Sep. 21st, 2007 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenJust some production and preference questions on Shakespeare, nothing too soul-searching. It's not bloody...well, you know.
[Poll #1058967]
Of course, this was inspired by our Wednesday trip to King Lear. In which those fabulous bitches, Goneril and Regan, had coats to kill for (a-ha! the real reason they were such spiteful hags!). Honestly, though, I can't remember a production where I didn't hate them for as long as I did. Sir Ian McKellan's doddering Lear really made them seem almost reasonable. I suspect the reasons for this are two-fold. One, the production did a great job of showing how rowdy and awful Lear's men were (making them seem like awful houseguests to inflict upon anyone). And two, Lear was so obviously already senile by the time he makes the downfall decision of his life, that you can almost imagine that Goneril and Regan had developed their attitudes as survival mechanisms to deal with an increasingly insensate, irrascible father. It speaks well to contemporary audiences of the so-called "sandwich" generations who must not only provide for children but for their own parents when said elders are no longer able to care for themselves. So Lear's ranting about how awful it is to be treated like a child, while meant to be sympathetic to us once upon a tiime, really doesn't win any pity from me. Because tempermental adults are no better than children. And are possibly worse.
Further proof that I am a firm Slytherclaw? I still wish Edmund had won somehow. He was smart, ambitious, talented--more so than the rest of the petty, mock-villainous crowd or the sanctimonious/crazy good folk. He deserves to win for being just that much more clever, you ask me. Edmund is a mini-Iago, someone who for no fault of his own, is just passed by in opportunities that he does not make himself. Iago's more shallow than Edmund, though. Edmund, being a bastard, has had nothing to do with his own base-ness, and he has very probably only turned out so rotten for the fact he's been teased his whole life as being the production of base desire. Ugh. I was never so disgusted as when Glouscester sits and regales a friend about the getting of Edmund. WHILE EDMUND STANDS THERE. Ugh ugh ugh.
And yet? I found I actually liked Edgar, who previously got held aside with the same disgust I show for the useless but oh-so-saintly Cordelia. The actor was phenomenal in expressing his anguish over the fate of his father. He and the actor playing Edmund were fantastic played off each other. So, while I still wish Edmund could have won, Edgar's revenge was very satisfying.
Not my favorite play (I've ranted about how stupid it is that Cordelia didn't just suck it up and kiss-ass too many times to repeat all that here), but it was well done. I was entertained, which was all I asked. And the hanging of the Fool shocked me, which was fun in its way for being different (not fun in the way![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkling1 enjoyed that; having only seen Sylvester McCoy in that awful Doctor Who movie, I can't say I hate him for anything...yet). Mostly because they went into the intermission with him still hanging. I'd just begun to wonder if they meant to leave him until the second half when the actors came and got him down. Yeesh.
[Poll #1058967]
Of course, this was inspired by our Wednesday trip to King Lear. In which those fabulous bitches, Goneril and Regan, had coats to kill for (a-ha! the real reason they were such spiteful hags!). Honestly, though, I can't remember a production where I didn't hate them for as long as I did. Sir Ian McKellan's doddering Lear really made them seem almost reasonable. I suspect the reasons for this are two-fold. One, the production did a great job of showing how rowdy and awful Lear's men were (making them seem like awful houseguests to inflict upon anyone). And two, Lear was so obviously already senile by the time he makes the downfall decision of his life, that you can almost imagine that Goneril and Regan had developed their attitudes as survival mechanisms to deal with an increasingly insensate, irrascible father. It speaks well to contemporary audiences of the so-called "sandwich" generations who must not only provide for children but for their own parents when said elders are no longer able to care for themselves. So Lear's ranting about how awful it is to be treated like a child, while meant to be sympathetic to us once upon a tiime, really doesn't win any pity from me. Because tempermental adults are no better than children. And are possibly worse.
Further proof that I am a firm Slytherclaw? I still wish Edmund had won somehow. He was smart, ambitious, talented--more so than the rest of the petty, mock-villainous crowd or the sanctimonious/crazy good folk. He deserves to win for being just that much more clever, you ask me. Edmund is a mini-Iago, someone who for no fault of his own, is just passed by in opportunities that he does not make himself. Iago's more shallow than Edmund, though. Edmund, being a bastard, has had nothing to do with his own base-ness, and he has very probably only turned out so rotten for the fact he's been teased his whole life as being the production of base desire. Ugh. I was never so disgusted as when Glouscester sits and regales a friend about the getting of Edmund. WHILE EDMUND STANDS THERE. Ugh ugh ugh.
And yet? I found I actually liked Edgar, who previously got held aside with the same disgust I show for the useless but oh-so-saintly Cordelia. The actor was phenomenal in expressing his anguish over the fate of his father. He and the actor playing Edmund were fantastic played off each other. So, while I still wish Edmund could have won, Edgar's revenge was very satisfying.
Not my favorite play (I've ranted about how stupid it is that Cordelia didn't just suck it up and kiss-ass too many times to repeat all that here), but it was well done. I was entertained, which was all I asked. And the hanging of the Fool shocked me, which was fun in its way for being different (not fun in the way
darkling1 enjoyed that; having only seen Sylvester McCoy in that awful Doctor Who movie, I can't say I hate him for anything...yet). Mostly because they went into the intermission with him still hanging. I'd just begun to wonder if they meant to leave him until the second half when the actors came and got him down. Yeesh.
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