In the run-up to the Melbourne Festival, Spark Online is publishing a mega-interview with artistic director Kristy Edmunds. Like a proper epic, it's in parts. Part 1 here, Part 2 up today and Part 3 promised soon...
Meanwhile, my Esteemed Colleague Mr Boyd roundly ticks off Philippe Genty, finishing with the observation that "Stage craft without ideas is like... is like religion without god". He's right, Genty is soaked in that peculiarly French misogyny (which I note with my signature über-subtlety via a reference to Jacques Lacan, arch-analyst of the feminine absence, who once told feminist theorist Luce Iriguay that women were not capable of understanding their own sexual pleasure). Myself, though, I don't think it's ideas that are missing...
As for me, I'm surviving my first week as an Author. It's hard to escape the feeling that one is a performing dog, especially when - as I was on Tuesday - I'm faced with a rank of sullen schoolgirls who would rather be anywhere else. (Thank you Ann, indefagitable Pellinor fan, for providing a friendly face in the audience). I'm glad that the books are thought to be worth promoting, but I do feel a little like that character in Barton Fink speaking about the film producer: "He's taking an interest, Barton. He's taking an interest. It's a disaster!" (Update: to be fair, it's been pretty fun most of the time. And hellooo, Warrnambool! That was cool!)
There was this whole 'modernism for the bourgeois masses' vibe going through the whole show. I like surrealist art with men in bowler hats as much as the next guy, but to have a modern stage show using this cliche (or close enough, I think it was fedoras, not bowler hats) - well, it seemed a little out of date.
ReplyDeleteToo right, TimT. I love illusion, all the same, and this is masterly illusion. Especially the people being gobbled by letters. You seldom see it done this well. And there were some moments, the silhoettes (is that how you spell it?) of performers with the letters dancing between them, and so on. Or that surprising moment when a hill turned out to be people...
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