Speis

A fellow pedant. Must remember to read this later.

Stayed in to watch the Bob Dylan documentary on good ol' BBC 2 last night. Dylan is a pretty enigmatic figure and I doubt he gives a lot of interviews - if you have that much money, why bother? - but when Martin Scorsese is at your door, I imagine one feels a little honoured.

Interesting stuff, with early footage of Dylan performing spliced with a recent interview of the much older, wiser, crinklier folk rocker saying how he wasn't really that political and cutting to shots of him playing a civil rights concert. Saying that he didn't know that Blowin' in the Wind was a great song when he wrote it, though he knew it felt good at the time.

If he can write that song and not be immediately knocked out by it, I think that shows that it's okay to question anything. Nothing is obvious. Anyway, he didn't see it as a political song, I suppose he thinks about things in a broader way.

A radio interviewer asked him if 'Hard Rain' was about atomic rain and he just laughed and said he had never thought of it that way. Under the surface you could see that he had a clear idea of who he wanted to be and where he wanted to go. He tracked down the people he wanted to talk to and grabbed the records he wanted to listen to.

He took his dungaree-wearing country boy accent off to New York city because he knew that it was the place where it was all happening. Now that he's famous he can relax and disappear back into the fog of celebrity, but at the time he was really chasing it. It wasn't an accident, he didn't just blow in on the breeze. He payed his dues along the way, he worked the support slots in shitty clubs and coffee houses. He had guys telling him to get lost and he just kept coming back.

Part 2's tonight.

When you go to see a play and the queue for spare tickets is reaching up the stairs from the box office, you know you're on to a good thing. When this particular showing is a matinee, you're dealing with a minor phenomenon. That's what it was like at A View from the Bridge in the Gate this weekend. The play itself was excellent, it's a really intense family drama. The actors all stand together in terms of excellence, though for pure brooding magnetism everyone's eyes were on Christopher Meloni who plays Eddie Carbone. It reminded me of watching Marlon Brando in the film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. He's a big guy but he seems to be trapped in his surroundings, in his relationship with his family and inside his own head. He's a mass of contradictions and uncertainties, turned in against his own loved ones. It's genuinely stunning to watch him, whether he's peeling an apple or threatening someone with a bottle of scotch.

But I'm clearly gushing now so I'll just end by saying, Best Play in Yonks!

The class had a big discussion yesterday about whether any news is truly impartial. It was all getting a little philosophical with half a dozen people claiming that they personally didn't think they could write an unbiased report. I think they're overthinking this thing. Impartial simply means showing both sides of the story. It isn't that hard to do. Talk to the people involved, get your facts straight and avoid emotive language. Naturally, welve all encountered examples of severely biased journalists, stories and newspapers, but most of the news we read is pretty fair.

Who's gonna take an extreme angle when they're asked to cover a fireman rescuing a woman?

{Edit: Yeah, I spotted the typo in the subject too but I kinda like it.}

The Guardian reported on the recently-published 100 minute Bible and invited readers to submit a 100-word edition of God's word. Here goes:

First there was God. He was great. Adam was less successful and with Eve caused some trouble. Their offspring flourished until God gave them a fatal watering and started again. Battles followed and things got a little hairy. Moses provided discipline until God sent his son down. An angel impregnated Mary and she gave birth in a surprisingly well-attended stable. Jesus roamed the provinces before recruiting his roadies, working some miracles in catering and hitting the big time. Jealousy led to his death, but Jesus made a comeback before heading for the big soundstage in the sky.

Amen.

I was at The Importance of Being Earnest the other night in the Abbey. Judging by the number of people there, it's exactly the kind of frothy hit the Theatre needed, at a time when its accounting practices, production choices and relevance are being questioned, as well as providing good promotion for the forthcoming Dublin Theatre Festival. It's a well-deserved success too, as the play I saw last night was well-acted, beautifully staged and highly amusing. The all-male cast, who seem to be having a wonderful time in their sumptuous dresses, could only upset the most narrow-minded of prudes. In fact, for me at least it's the additions to Oscar Wilde's play that are more controversial.

Director Conall Morrisson has added a Prologue where the elderly Wilde relives past glories in a Parisian bar. As an escape from his poverty and loneliness he begins to act out the lines from one of his plays, as the stage comes to life. It proves to be an effective dramatic technique, neatly reminding the audience of Wilde's banishment, explaining why the cast is made up entirely of men and adding a layer of sorrow that the original play was entirely lacking.

It is the third point that I take exception to. Firstly, I think that a play belongs to the author and should not be tampered with, except perhaps to abridge the work due to time constraints or to excise a phrase, word or theme that is repugnant to modern audiences. It is the director's duty to bring his interpretation of the play to the stage, not to insert himself into the work. Morrisson's additions, particularly his attempts in the prologue to ape Wilde's own flippant epigrams, jar with the rest of the play, somewhat inevitably, as they are not Wilde's work.

Secondly, they are unnecessary. Most people are familiar with the details of Oscar Wilde's life; the poet was no shrinking violet. His end was a tragic and a premature one, but it has little to do with the events of this play - a witty and satiric social comedy. There is no sorrow or tragedy in the lives of Earnest and Algernon, inserting it is a nuisance. If there had been some illuminating parallels to be drawn between their humorous scrapes and Wilde's own life, then there would have been a point for tampering.

As it is, Morrisson's additions smack of pride and egotism. Two characteristics, conversely, that Wilde himself would probably applaud.

After a year in the stereotypical wilderness, I'm back in college and I have free web access again. Cue montage of small children rushing through a sweet factory/dams bursting and drenching valleys/fireworks going off/a man running around a telephone booth, riding an invisible motorbike/Morris dancers drinking cups of tea.

I am pleased.