tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post5372459811240835529..comments2024-02-18T19:36:43.844+11:00Comments on theatre notes: Review: The Story of Mary MacLane by HerselfAlison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-40096929138008183322012-01-07T12:25:07.872+11:002012-01-07T12:25:07.872+11:00Hi Tim J - apologies again, I missed you there. Ju...Hi Tim J - apologies again, I missed you there. Just to clarify: my response wasn't "lukewarm". I enjoyed this show, found it a fascinating and (obviously) stimulating work of theatre. <br /><br />One question: why would it be necessarily narcissistic for a woman to assert a public self? Does this mean all men with public selves are narccistic also?Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-67214940369316373552012-01-07T11:30:10.709+11:002012-01-07T11:30:10.709+11:00Hi Bojana - sorry for the delay in posting this (m...Hi Bojana - sorry for the delay in posting this (moderation kicks in after a fortnight to screen out spam, and I didn't see this until this morning). Great to hear from you! For my part, I hadn't heard of Mary MacLane before your show, but it prompted me to read everything I could find, because I was consumed with curiosity. And also because I was a little ashamed that I hadn't.<br />Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-1593953510420179922012-01-06T16:24:50.286+11:002012-01-06T16:24:50.286+11:00Forgive me for responding SO LATE in the game. I w...Forgive me for responding SO LATE in the game. I wish I’d read this nerd off while it was at its peak, but alas, I have only just caught up on everything I was missing out on in 2011!<br /><br />Straight up, Alison and Cameron, I want to say that I love reading both your blogs, about others as much as about myself. :)<br /><br />With Mary, I am surprised at the level of attachment reviewers had ride on theatrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01340454663295866409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-9222324835431489082011-12-12T13:33:25.608+11:002011-12-12T13:33:25.608+11:00What an entertaining exchange between AC and CW - ...What an entertaining exchange between AC and CW - my question is this: It seems that (reading between the lines) you both ultimately had luke warm responses to this show- Yet is has sparked this vibrant debate. I wonder if this has changed your thoughts on the show. Has the "heady" joust given the piece more worth in retrospect? As a side note - I don't think women of this time had Tim Jhttp://seymourcentre.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-12187808832709027952011-12-11T20:34:56.611+11:002011-12-11T20:34:56.611+11:00Gilbert and Gubar were writing in the 1970s, at th...Gilbert and Gubar were writing in the 1970s, at the crest of second wave feminism, and in a surge of optimistic faith that things were changing. There may be a truth about creative advantage, although I think that's highly arguable, and can be countered by many things: but whatever the case, the disadvantage that women still face has nothing to do with creativity, but with structurally Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-88142925909171768882011-12-11T20:01:50.947+11:002011-12-11T20:01:50.947+11:00Origen's castration was part of a pattern of e...Origen's castration was part of a pattern of early Christian fathers resorting to extreme mortification of the flesh (see, eg, the Stylites or Pillar-Saints). According to Eusebius he took the Gospel of Matthew literally:<br /><br />"For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be Cameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-15738574641435016072011-12-11T19:53:36.127+11:002011-12-11T19:53:36.127+11:00Alison,
Don't be disingenuous. The creative ...Alison, <br /><br />Don't be disingenuous. The creative advantage that Gilbert and Gubar (with whom I agree) draw from the structural inequality is quite clearly spelled out in the quotation above. Do you agree? If not, why not? <br /><br />And you yourself point out the novelty advantage at the beginning of your review:<br /><br />"Her best selling memoir The Story of Mary MacLane was Cameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-65180923211781134262011-12-11T19:47:14.999+11:002011-12-11T19:47:14.999+11:00Blackout.
The end of Act One.Blackout.<br /><br />The end of Act One.Geoffreyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05409350618909242278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-62564584756302856662011-12-11T19:37:27.743+11:002011-12-11T19:37:27.743+11:00Interesting. I don't think Origen's self m...Interesting. I don't think Origen's self mutilation is the same thing at all (whatever his state of mind, Origen would have had no problem with his authorisation as a male subject, which he would have been able to simply assume). It strikes me maybe as something like Attis, who did the same thing, some kind of ecstatic ultimate sacrifice for God.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-39459275667165406902011-12-11T19:28:04.921+11:002011-12-11T19:28:04.921+11:00Cameron - if you've read and absorbed Gubar (a...Cameron - if you've read and absorbed Gubar (and I hope there's more), why on earth would you then respond to a sober report on the present structural inequality in the publication and reviewing of books by women as "privileged whinging"? If women have higher literacy rates than men, why they are still such an egregious minority in the literary arts, in every major literary Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-12693155225661838172011-12-11T19:27:09.295+11:002011-12-11T19:27:09.295+11:00This is my, like, thirteenth wind or something, bu...This is my, like, thirteenth wind or something, but while we're doing weird asides, I'd note that extreme responses to the imprisoning experience of gender weren't and aren't unique to women: try the 3rd century theologian Origen, who according to Eusebius cut his own nuts off for God, or (to prove it still happens) the statistics on American male autocastration in David Foster Cameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-48342940078144840352011-12-11T19:01:29.047+11:002011-12-11T19:01:29.047+11:00Been up for 36 hours and just come out of a screen...Been up for 36 hours and just come out of a screening of Wagner's Siegfried at the Met. (Seriously whiffy sexual politics, glorious production from LePage, and my word can Jay Hunter Morris sing.) Probably not going to make much sense, but I'm too tired to care. <br /><br />No. I'm not at all arguing that the medieval period wasn't misogynistic. Yes. I am arguing that a blanket Cameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-52802811729832557562011-12-11T10:15:48.465+11:002011-12-11T10:15:48.465+11:00(I'm hopping along in afterthoughts this morni...(I'm hopping along in afterthoughts this morning.) The commonly held assumption about "navel-gazing twitterers and bloggers" is the dismissal to hand, and it's a response crucially inflected through unexamined gendered responses. Which is to say that reviews like Herbert's reproduce the gendered responses that take exception to a woman not only having an autonomous self, butAlison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-65028310908032647502011-12-11T09:56:24.928+11:002011-12-11T09:56:24.928+11:00Oh, on the digital age, narcissism and celebrity: ...Oh, on the digital age, narcissism and celebrity: I just think that's too easy a point, and that it's been mainly picked up (as in Kate Herbert's review, say) to bulk up the notion of feminine narcissism and to trivialise the kinds of self-exploration MacLane makes in her story, which I think is more interesting than the usual cliche about self-exploration or teh internets. The Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-79330585025531647292011-12-11T09:29:05.530+11:002011-12-11T09:29:05.530+11:00Cameron - thanks for wading through that difficult...Cameron - thanks for wading through that difficult typography. But are you seriously suggesting that it isn't true that mediaeval Europe is profoundly misogynist? Yes, of course there were exceptions: Kemp was a brewer, and wealthier than her husband; Christine de Pisan was a wealthy aristocrat with a very enlightened husband, and so on. But they remain exceptions.<br /><br />I don't knowAlison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-31752580083338603922011-12-10T22:54:08.544+11:002011-12-10T22:54:08.544+11:00Sigh. Your assumption (as with most of your assump...Sigh. Your assumption (as with most of your assumptions about my state of knowledge) is incorrect. I’ve read many contemporary scholars on female monastics and mystics in medieval Europe - though I can't recall Regnier-Bohler specifically - through my studies, and have a fairly comprehensive overview of the relevant feminist historiography. I have also read all the primary sources you mentionCameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-50350400558103093762011-12-10T08:05:01.757+11:002011-12-10T08:05:01.757+11:00Hi Cameron: we'll agree to differ on the music...Hi Cameron: we'll agree to differ on the music. Though I see you also talk about "narcissism" in relation to Miss MacLane.<br /><br />I'm assuming your degree in mediaeval history didn't include the work of contemporary scholars such as Danielle Regnier-Bohler, whose writing on this subject first sparked my interest. It resulted in a lot of research - I read dozens of these Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-12555729708583519052011-12-10T02:15:35.812+11:002011-12-10T02:15:35.812+11:00Have to agree with Keith on this one.
And really...Have to agree with Keith on this one. <br /><br />And really Alison, think what you like about the play, but you're drawing a stupendously long bow to find a resonance bwtween Maclane and the likes of Margery Kempe or Hildegard of Bingen (or Julian of Norwich or John of the Cross or the author of The Cloud of Unknowing for that matter). All of those mystics proceeded from apophatic theology, Cameron Woodheadhttp://cameronwoodhead.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-11635005194751768932011-12-09T03:59:29.539+11:002011-12-09T03:59:29.539+11:00I'm continentally-challenged and so was unabl...I'm continentally-challenged and so was unable to see the show, but am happy a writer imbued in today's methods get Mary MacLane, and from a new angle, and express it thoroughgoingly. No doubt M had a deeply sacramental thrust, yet at the same time sought some integration of it with a completely earthly existence. I often think of her like Lao Tzu - she came, did her work, then retired. Michael R. Brownhttp://www.marymaclane.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-85710231219691229722011-12-08T23:35:51.474+11:002011-12-08T23:35:51.474+11:00"Only about surface" - this struck me as..."Only about surface" - this struck me as the profound insight (and where it connects with Nietzsche). And I enjoyed the band.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-42148312086083412982011-12-08T19:29:08.389+11:002011-12-08T19:29:08.389+11:00To me, the show felt like it was treading water mu...To me, the show felt like it was treading water much earlier than two thirds of the way through - and I was frustrated that I didn't get a sense of MacLane as much as I got a sense of Novakovic's performance as MacLane. I understand that was part of the conceit - made explicit by the reading of "Novakovic's journal", but it gave me the sense the show was all and only about Keith Gowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05886217413331590438noreply@blogger.com