Your choosing to remember the good about people sounds very laudable to me! You're trying to be an antidote for Mark Anthony's opinion about Julius Caesar, it seems: "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." - William Shakespeare.
Speaking of the Bard, I wonder what you think about "Modernizing" Shakespeare's plays? Once I saw a performance of Romeo and Juliet, with the sets and costuming all done as if they were in Bosnia during the war. Another time, I forget which performance it was, but suddenly Chewbacca from Star Wars came up onstage from the trap door. Talk about incongruity!
I once saw Julius Caesar performed on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall. They had visual monitors on the sides of the "stage" area, on which were shown film clips of our most recent foreign military involvement - perhaps it was the US military presence in Iraq. The actor playing Julius Caesar arrived "on set" in a black limousine. He played the role as if he were a celebrated mobster. We had read Julius Caesar in eleventh grade in high school. I had a hard time finding any connection between this "anti-war screed" and Shakespeare's concept of the semi-historic relationships between Caesar & Anthony!
I can see your point - coming at it as a writer. I think, in the 1980s or so, there was a movement in Southern California's theater scene, at least, of "Making Shakespeare Relevant." "Relevant, in this perspective, meant emphasizing anti-war sentiments.
Perhaps I was overly influenced by our English teachers - but it seemed to me there was a "Shakespeare is Timeless" mystique. Seeing Shakespeare in his own time, and the humanity of the generations he lived among.
Once, in Stratford Ontario, I saw Richard Chamberlain play Richard III. In the speech that ends "Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?" Chamberlain just set my heartstrings to vibrating. His acting was so powerful that it seemed he could sell absolutely anyone on anything, no matter what the logical mind might say.
That sort of experience is still available to us today - it has to do with personal interconnectivity - with the sense of intense, internal reality, despite what the superficial aspects appear to be! It's a kind of magic only a few can weave, and a magic that abounds in APHC!
Go west, Mr G. Enough about East shows. Come back to the Portland Zoo. Best show of yours I’ve seen. San Francisco was an o k place, your show was very good, take big chance on lot’s of rain. Might rain a bit Portland, but it’s doable. Come when the roses are blooming. It’s one of the best things about Portland Oregon, not the other Portland.
Your choosing to remember the good about people sounds very laudable to me! You're trying to be an antidote for Mark Anthony's opinion about Julius Caesar, it seems: "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." - William Shakespeare.
Speaking of the Bard, I wonder what you think about "Modernizing" Shakespeare's plays? Once I saw a performance of Romeo and Juliet, with the sets and costuming all done as if they were in Bosnia during the war. Another time, I forget which performance it was, but suddenly Chewbacca from Star Wars came up onstage from the trap door. Talk about incongruity!
I once saw Julius Caesar performed on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall. They had visual monitors on the sides of the "stage" area, on which were shown film clips of our most recent foreign military involvement - perhaps it was the US military presence in Iraq. The actor playing Julius Caesar arrived "on set" in a black limousine. He played the role as if he were a celebrated mobster. We had read Julius Caesar in eleventh grade in high school. I had a hard time finding any connection between this "anti-war screed" and Shakespeare's concept of the semi-historic relationships between Caesar & Anthony!
I am all in favor of rewriting Shakespeare. Have at it. If he were still here, he'd be rewriting his own stuff, so why not help him out?
I can see your point - coming at it as a writer. I think, in the 1980s or so, there was a movement in Southern California's theater scene, at least, of "Making Shakespeare Relevant." "Relevant, in this perspective, meant emphasizing anti-war sentiments.
Perhaps I was overly influenced by our English teachers - but it seemed to me there was a "Shakespeare is Timeless" mystique. Seeing Shakespeare in his own time, and the humanity of the generations he lived among.
Once, in Stratford Ontario, I saw Richard Chamberlain play Richard III. In the speech that ends "Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?" Chamberlain just set my heartstrings to vibrating. His acting was so powerful that it seemed he could sell absolutely anyone on anything, no matter what the logical mind might say.
That sort of experience is still available to us today - it has to do with personal interconnectivity - with the sense of intense, internal reality, despite what the superficial aspects appear to be! It's a kind of magic only a few can weave, and a magic that abounds in APHC!
You say you don't write about your life. You do all the time.
Go west, Mr G. Enough about East shows. Come back to the Portland Zoo. Best show of yours I’ve seen. San Francisco was an o k place, your show was very good, take big chance on lot’s of rain. Might rain a bit Portland, but it’s doable. Come when the roses are blooming. It’s one of the best things about Portland Oregon, not the other Portland.