Stratford Trip: Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare's more controversial works; written while his style was under the goretastic Christopher Marlowe's influence, it's a very bloody, very flawed play. In the authorship debates, Titus Andronicus is one of the first plays to be offered candidacy for a non-Shakespeare playwright.

Briefly, the play concerns two families; the Andronici, who have suffered great losses in the wars against the Goths, and the royal family of the Goths, now captured and in Rome's possession. The patriarch of the Andronici, Titus Andronicus, sacrifices one of the Goth Queen Tamora's sons. Somehow, Tamora is put in a position of power over the Andronici, and uses her new untouchability to wreak havoc on the once-glorious family.

Andronicus then retaliates, and so on until everyone is dead. In essence, this is a revenge tragedy. I love it, and was very excited to see it at the Tom Patterson stage, my very favourite stage at the Stratford Festival.

Full Day

Finished my Classic Civ. exam without too much ado. It was pretty easy, though I definitely struck out on the government section. What can you do.

After that, I went downtown to attend the Tartuffe reading, but not before purchasing volume two of Sandman. More on that tomorrow, when I actually read and retain what's in it.

It was great to see so many people who I'd enjoyed working with before but wasn't able to keep in touch with at the reading. It's so hard to find people passionate about drama who aren't totally obnoxious, but this group is consistently mature and amazing. I look forward to working with them. It was also a thrill to get the RHYMING TRANSLATION once and for all. I can't stop reading it. It's almost as amazing as Sandman.

However, none of these things were quite as exciting as when I arrived and was informed that I now had dual roles. Rather than just playing the Officer, I have been bequeathed the role of M. Loyal. This is great because the actions of M. Loyal are immediately undone by the Officer, not three pages afterward. Best dual casting ever.

When I came home, I checked my e-mail and found a link to this website, which fully announces Shakespeare's Globe's plan to make a multi-lingual multi-cultural Shakespeare fest to coincide with the London Olympics. They plan to do the entirety of Shakespeare's canon, but in all different languages with all different theatre companies. This is brill, totally brill. I'm saving up to get to London as of today.

Lord of the Rings is doing as well as I could expect. I finished chapter two. What happened in a nutshell:

• Years pass, Frodo is well-preserved and eccentric as Bilbo. Presumably the latter is genetic, and the former is the influence of the Ring.
• Gandalf returns after a long absence to inform Frodo that the Ring is evil and should be destroyed immediately. Frodo wonders why Gandalf never comes on a social call.
• Destroying the Ring necessitates that Frodo leave the Shire. He is not pleased, until he is reminded, none-too-gently, that not destroying the Ring means that the Shire will likely be enslaved by the Dark Powers... in a roundabout way.
• To everyone's surprise, Frodo decides to leave, when it is revealed that his gardener Sam Gamgee has been eavesdropping on the entire conversation. The gardener becomes the third of their party. He is inordinately pleased about this.

Characters Introduced:

• Sam Gamgee- Frodo's gardener, who obviously has a bit more tolerance for adventure and eccentricity than other Hobbits.
• Gollum- Mentioned at great length by Gandalf. We learn of how the Ring corrupted him, and the whole sad story of his life.
• Saruman- Again, mentioned by Gandalf. A wizard of great power whose pride grows with his knowledge. Dangerous.

This chapter clipped along nicely. I don't understand why the book is so big, when action is set so quickly. I imagine most of the book's bulk will be due to Tolkien's long idyllic descriptions of people walking...

Cheesecake A Success!

It could have been sweeter, but it had the same texture as cheesecake, which I think is the most important thing about it. Next time however... white chocolate and macademia nuts! Have also been contemplating making homemade cheesecake chocolates, wherein I will make cheesecake batter, put it in the itty bitty latex cupcake pan, and cook it. Then I will dip it in chocolate, let that harden, and gain some chub.

My Ongoing Projects:

• Essay on Ancient Roman food
• Essay on The Name Of The Rose
• 'Lascia Ch'io Pianga' for my extracurricular vocals class
• 'How Could I Ever Know' (from The Secret Garden) for my intracurricular vocals class
• Slideshow about 30s music for my intracurricular vocals class
• French essay...
• Possibly rehearsing Tartuffe for a community theatre company
• Metropolis in the style of Metamorphosis

I am not stressed. Not me!

I was nominated for an award within my school that honours students in the arts. I was nominated for the vocal honour, along with two girls. Should be interesting, though the others are far better than I am. I can't go to the ceremony; working on the stuff that will let me graduate.

This is my idol Máté Kamarás in a new treatment of Franz Wedekind's play Erdgeist, most commonly known to us because of the silent film Pandora's Box (starring the fantastic Louise Brooks), or Alban Berg's opera Lulu. This particular adaptation is a musical, a very strange one that I'm on the fence about liking. But, the cast is so good and the score so agreeable that I may be sending away for a soundtrack soon.

Also, you know who's adorable? Shirota Yuu. He is a Japanese-Spanish theatre actor who recently played Der Tod in the Toho theatre company's umpteenth production of Elisabeth, and will be playing in the first Japanese production of Presgurvic's Romeo et Juliette with both genders featured, that is. He has a lovely voice. And he's adorable.

So beautiful...

Spring Has Sprung

All the depressing weather yesterday has paid off; today I woke up and looked out the window to find that the grass was green, the trees were bedecked with leaves, and the lilacs were blooming! My littlest brother was running around telling anybody who would listen about the purple flowers. My other brother was lying in bed and trying not to upchuck, like he has twice today already.

Working on a song I will be singing for a recital in June. It's very difficult for someone of my range and ability, but it's Handel, so some effort must be made. It's called 'Lascia ch'io pianga', from an opera called Rinaldo. Here is the wonderful Philippe Jaroussky singing said aria:

Rediscovered my ancient English-German dictionary (the dictionary is ancient, not the English). It's from 1949, and therefore it is distressingly diplomatic. According to a sticker in my book, it was also sold in Melbourne before it came to the second-hand bookstore I acquired it from. What stories these books want to tell.

The spine of the German-English, English-German Dictionary



The Australian booksellers' sticker. Angus & Robertson, I have your book.

 On the Ancient Roman cheesecake front, I executed the recipe with little fuss and put it in the oven looking like this:

It looks like it might actually bake!

The green leafy stuff you see around the edges are grape leaves, to line the spring pan and avoid leakage, which would have been a tragedy considering the amount of ricotta and honey that went into this recipe. When it is served, the grape leaves will be on top, making a crust. I'm not sure how that will taste. We'll see tomorrow.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:

Hey look at that! It baked!

Once again, will it be delicious? Only time will tell.

Rainy Saturday

Went to the store and found ricotta cheese and grape leaves to make a cheesecake in the Ancient Roman style. The former comes in plastic tubs, like margarine or sour cream, the latter comes in a big glass canister like pickles. What a rich country I live in. Incidentally, the Ancient Romans would have used fresh bay leaves, but I've never seen a bay leaf that wasn't completely dehydrated, so grape leaves seemed the best substitution. I'll probably blog on how this recipe goes tomorrow, when I make it.

Watched Doctor Who. This episode was written by Neil Gaiman, and, wonderfully, it showed. I also detected some similarities to the works of Beckett, but I feel that this may have more to do with the fact that I'm taking a studies in literature class right now, and so cannot look at any media from after 1957 without seeing magic realism or existentialist motifs.

For that selfsame studies in literature class I must write a version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis in the style of Franz Kafka's stories, preferably The Bucket Rider, but I feel Metamorphosis is more appropriate.

Not to mention the ongoing essay on The Name Of The Rose, which turned into a bloody university thesis.

The Scriptorium is my thesis [insert evil half-crazed laugh]!!!



And now for lists.

List Of Things I Need To Read:

• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
• The Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
• House Of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Name Of The Rose, by Umberto Eco
• The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
• One Hundred Years Of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe
• The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh
• The Poems of Sophia Parnok

Things I Am In The Process Of Reading

• The Name Of The Rose, by Umberto Eco
• A Brief History Of Time, by Stephen Hawking
• The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, by Martin McDonagh
• Beowulf, with Seamus Heaney's brill translation.
• Tartuffe, by Moliere. I can't find a very brill translation, at the moment, so I've taken to reading it in French.

I see maybe a slight imbalance in ratio. Er.

Have some Janelle Monáe, singing her song 'Metropolis'. I enjoy this artist because of her aesthetic, true, but unlike most artists who have a great look (I'm looking at YOU, j-rock bands), her music is actually excellent as well.