Ms TN prevaricates. Again.
In the two weeks since I returned from the UK, I have been out at the theatre for seven nights. Given that I swore a solemn oath to keep my theatre-going under control, this argues a certain weakness of will on my part. However, the small print of my oath (sub clause 2[a] para iii) is "unless it looks interesting", which in the past fortnight has made my vow as wobbly as Rudd's ETS scheme.
This flurry of activity is, like this month's bizarre tropical weather, unprecedented. It used to be, back in the dark ages of, oh, 2006, that the only things that happened in November were a couple of Malthouse shows, the MTC's Christmas panto and the Short & Sweet festival, a open mic for theatricals that is, as My Esteemed Colleague Mr Boyd once memorably remarked, theatre for people with the attention span of goldfish. But this year, as if to ram home to this prodigal daughter the diversity and depth of Melbourne's performance culture, there's been a veritable festival featuring some of our leading indie artists. However they turn out in practice, these are shows with "don't miss" written on the package.
Ms TN has, in short, been having a fine time. All fine times have their price, and my price is writing reviews. This is proving harder than I expected, and not only because the four shows I saw last week deserve some serious thought: a persistent lurking yukness keeps hijacking the free progress of my thinking, which is making consciousness less pleasant than it ought to be. But dammit, we must all screw our courage to the sticking point, and I've more shows to see this week. So here's my assurance that behind the scenes, in the intricate clockwork of TN's inscrutable inner workings, reviews are being written. Slowly, to be sure. But they're being written all the same.
7 comments:
Dear Ms TN ... I have been guilty of damning Esteemed Colleague Boyd for Twittering, but now take it all back and ask you to Twit your head off. Your slow and sure reviews are beyond value, but it would be a great help to have a fast Twit from you while productions are still early in their runs and not too late to see.
I'll keep that in mind, especially as of the three don't-miss shows I saw last week, one is sold out and the other closed. Though the first one was sold out before it opened...
I've been flirting with tweets, or twits. But can't bring myself to do it. Maybe I should just do tweets on the blog.
For the record, I really liked The Harry Harlow Project (The Boyd wasn't impressed and Cameron was "meh"); there's a review brief in the print Australian today.
I liked Harry Harlow but find myself uncomfortably more in the Cameron camp as I thought it tried to do too much at times. The second half hour was very strong, though. Stronger than he gave it credit for I think.
Speaking of attention span... I have no recollection of ever saying that! (Perhaps trying to forget Sweet & Sour required that I forget the lot!)
That said, I *do* remember anonymous (hi anon!) berating me for dissing a Red Stitch show in 140-odd characters and telling me I was wasting my time twittering. (So, I accept your partial retraction... vicariously... I think.)
Strangely, the thought of you twittering, AC, reminds me of IBM releasing a (really really shithouse) mini computer about 30 years ago. Big Blue spoke of legitimising the market... which prompted one of their trailblazing competitors (the boss of DG, I think) to run a huge ad: the bastards say welcome.
So, welcome.
C de la B
Haha! You did say that! For once I remember something that you don't! But I don't blame you for wanting to clear out your memory.
Thanks (I think) for the welcome, you bastard.
I think I've become one of those quote-magnets [I can't believe I used quote as a noun just cos I liked the chick-magnet sound of the thing... the word is QUOTATION!]
Clever dick lines get attributed to me, like the "work experience boy" for Cameron. It's kinda nice for once. All those decades of cleverness... my best lines all absorbed into the Zeit. I invented "food porn" the appalling expression "genre bender" [requires mispronunciation to work, the horror!], the laptop computer &c. &c.
It could be worse. Mike Gaiman's best [?!] lines are now being attributed to Shakespeare fer fux sake! [Serves him goddamn right for naming a story Midsummer Night's Dream... Well, derr Mike!]
Scuse rambling irrelevance...
Er, would you believe Neil Gaiman! LOL. Holy misattribution, Batman!
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