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[hermionesviolin]

I got a call from some Shakesperean Troupe at 2am on a school night. They reciting some lines from Shakespeare and then ask me to rate them and blah blah blah.
-"kiarascura" in a Jolt Thread about the Whispering Woman

That’s the kind of Whispering Woman thing i find tempting to do. (Also, i have yet to get a call from the Whispering Woman. This makes me sad.)

I slept hardcore and then spent most of the day staring at my computer screen. I think i overloaded this week or something. And i keep thinking Spring Break begins next weekend, but it doesn’t. Just taking a break from staring at Michael’s paper yesterday helped immensely in my ability to finish it, so after hours of staring today i called an intermission and worked on my fic that’s due Mar. 5. Of course, it’s still far from done and then i went to see Equus with hedy and i just finished this entry and looked at the time and bugger.

While the role of the “professionally menopausal” therapist Martin Dysart is associated with stage legend Anthony Hopkins, the gender switch for this production makes for a “different but equally valid play,” said Meg Flaherty ‘05, who plays “Margaret” Dysart. While women and men auditioned for the role, [director Shannon “Max” ‘04] MacMillan believed a woman actor “could embody the passion” of the character more credibly. The change also eliminated any potential homoeroticism between doctor and patient, which has “cheapened” the show’s themes in other productions.
-from “Sexuality, gender and horses questioned in ‘Equus’ ” by Elizabeth Van-Houten in The Sophian, Arts, February 26, 2004

My first thought upon reading that paragraph was “Because clearly viewers only read in unintentional eroticism between members of the same sex,” followed by “Yes, the eroticism of the therapist/patient dynamic absolutely cheapens the drama of a play which is about the psychology of the twisted - oh wait, it’s because the gay eroticism, my mistake.”

I read the play in high school (Petersen... junior year i wanna say?) so i had forgotten some of the details.

The play opens with the deeply, textually, erotic boy/horse scene. And they’re worried about the possible eroticism between therapist and patient? (A relationship which is almost inherently erotic by its very nature, no less.) And for the record, there was no eroticism between Dr. Dysart and Alan in this production. Mostly the gender switch was moot (in part because Dysart was almost neutered what with the pantsuit and hair pulled back and all). The stuff about having children would have had a different resonance if it were textual, but knowing that it was a change i knew not to read into that. The only real problematic is that Mr. Strang says a line dissing women which you know he would only say to another man, that he wouldn’t say it to a female doctor, but it’s only one line and again, i knew the sex of the doctor had been changed. The only real change i saw (and this was a positive one) was that it rendered any sexual thing between Dysart and the magistrate moot. Because they were both women it was just a friendship, a relationship between equals, but with all the talk about marriage and stuff, it could easily be complicated by a man-woman dynamic, because of course we read sex into everything.

I almost didn’t go to this because i wasn’t thrilled by it in high school. Watching it tonight, with the sex and religion and sadomasochism i thought “This is fascinating.” There are so many interesting discussions one could have about these themes. (And yes, i totally channeled Angelus during Dysart’s final speech.)

“The premise is kinda like Fight Club.” -people in front of us as we left the production.
Um, in that not at all kind of way. I mean, given the statement i can make arguments about sadomasochism and sexuality and what it takes to fit into society. During parts i was thinking about Gibson’s The Passion of Christ and wondering if they purposefully placed Equus at the beginning of the Lenten season (i really doubt it) but Fight Club would so not come to mind.

Apparently there are a slew of theatre productions at Hampshire this weekend. I always go to stuff by myself and will be reserving tickets Monday evening, but if anyone actually wants to go to anything with me, lemme know.

Cabaret: March 4,5,6, and 7 at 8:00pm (student tickets $3)
All’s Well That Ends Well: March 2-6, 8 p.m. (student tickets $5) [edit: my mistake, this is at UMass]
Cloud Nine: March 4-7 and March 10-12, 8 p.m. (student tickets $3)

The international modern classic from renowned playwright Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine is an innovative theatrical, political comedy. It offers a biting critique of sexism, racism, and imperialism using satire, gender-bending, and music. Cloud Nine "unlocks the imagination, liberates the mind, and leaves you weak with laughter," says Time Out Magazine. While we are taken to Victorian Era Africa at the height of British colonialism and to the 1970's in post-sexual-revolution London, the play asks us to question how far we have really come, both as individuals and as a society.

Stuff at Smith this week:

Monday at 8pm: showing of Philadelphia in Wright Hall
Tuesday at 7:30 in Graham Hall (Hillyer): “Inventing Michelangelo: The Myth of the Creative Homosexual,” a lecture by James M. Saslow, Ruth and Clarence Kennedy Professor in Renaissance Studies, City University of New York, Queens College
Thursday at 7:30 in Seelye 207: Meredith Michaels reading from her new book: The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women

Hopefully i will have as little interest in this week’s Rec Council movie as i did last week’s ‘cause i much enjoy the free movies but haven’t the time. (Though i watched 3 Snow White films for my UMass class. I watched one of them and said that while i'm not sure i would actually recommend to anyone, it does a lot of really interesting stuff, but despite saying it didn't fascinate me as some versions have, i wrote 4 pages without breaking a sweat. [The response paper was to be 2 pages, so i went over what i had written and cut it down to focus on one particular theme -- the women and the glass, if you care.] If I thought anyone would care, i would go through all the symbolism and ambiguity and stuff in the film.)

Comments

[happymartian.livejournal.com]

I'm going to make a pitch for seeing Cloud Nine (of course, guess who's currently working on a negative amount of time and won't have time to go to see it, I'd be surprised if I can even catch "Equus"). It's a wonderfully weird play. It also reads very quickly and I'd recommend doing that before you see the performance because I can imagine that it can get very confusing when put on stage (some actors are supposed to switch characters between the acts and so on).

[onwingsofeagles.livejournal.com]

<1 The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women /i>
I think I just read about this. The columnist was reviewing two such books, and her general gist was "the mommy wars -- get over it." I think there was also something about the denial of the maternal instinct. It rang true for me -- that women are so determined to have the traditional "man's world" and it would be undermining to admit to having a desire to mother.
And yet, without mothers, humankind will simply vanish.
Always been a complicated topic for me -- I have friends who were horrified that I could go off to work full time while herminone was 5 weeks old; I in turn am horrified that people (who have choices) leave their infants with strangers; and I occasinoally wonder about our choices.
Too bad I'm not still in college and free to attend lectures :)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the fact that both of my parents now refer to me as Hermione within LJ. :)

Yeah, the whole Mommy Wars thing is complicated. It's just gonna be a reading from the book, but i'll let you know how it goes. (I'm hoping there will be an intelligent Q&A following.)

And we turned out pretty damned well with the choices you two made. :)