tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post7487639626442434106..comments2024-02-18T19:36:43.844+11:00Comments on theatre notes: Review: Summer of the Seventeenth DollAlison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-67010840150725246172012-02-05T18:19:00.569+11:002012-02-05T18:19:00.569+11:00sydney cane cutting hipster's last paragraph -...sydney cane cutting hipster's last paragraph - ROFLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-35431742787636905482012-01-29T23:49:40.549+11:002012-01-29T23:49:40.549+11:00Ah - I misread you then. You meant indiviualistic ...Ah - I misread you then. You meant indiviualistic as in that I'm reading the play as an individualistic play, not that I'm reading it individualistically. (There's a happy result. Did seem a bit out of character!)<br /><br />P.s SCCH - nice little erotic fiction novel. Little bit of the old "cuttin' the cane" as they say... Roo and Barney gettin' "up nawth"Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-64394776486657063042012-01-29T09:46:08.365+11:002012-01-29T09:46:08.365+11:00Hey 4 Coffins - I hope that I would never discoura...Hey 4 Coffins - I hope that I would never discourage anyone from following their own line of thought! God forbid. I simply disagree. Not sure either whether I'm here to provide "fair and balanced criticism". I try to be fair, but in the end, I think what I think. Just as you do.<br /><br />I meant individualistic in the sense that the individual has ultimate agency and Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-35961902764145203292012-01-28T15:32:24.528+11:002012-01-28T15:32:24.528+11:00Thanks for your review Alison, having seen this pr...Thanks for your review Alison, having seen this production in Sydney the idea of seeing it without Dan Wylie did not appeal. I found him the standout - almost a role made for him. I want to note that as you have mentioned Ms Whyte but not him.<br /><br />Anonymous made a comment about the set and how this may or may not have played out in Sydney vs Melbourne. In the Sydney season I actually sydney cane cutting hipsternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-18518016750535496432012-01-28T13:43:41.487+11:002012-01-28T13:43:41.487+11:00And yet at the core of this morally vacuous world ...And yet at the core of this morally vacuous world - what about Woyzeck himself? Where is his morality? He seems unable to take any empowered decision for change. Yes its a sick world, but Buchner also paints the individual as sick within it. One can see the play as a challenge to society, but there is a philosophical failure of the individual at its centre - which I think is a failure of Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-84965970982459323492012-01-27T12:50:47.459+11:002012-01-27T12:50:47.459+11:00Hi 4C: to continue our digression: I'm not su...Hi 4C: to continue our digression: I'm not sure how a play which explores why a man might commit an extreme act "absolves him from guilt". Certainly W's actions stem from collapse. But the Captain is hardly the play's moral centre: he is more the rotten moral (bourgeois) core, from which collapse spreads. The play itself doesn't tie up anything in a moral homily: it Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-65374105876659744592012-01-27T11:55:15.218+11:002012-01-27T11:55:15.218+11:00Yes, we were down in the Arts Centre bunker, so no...Yes, we were down in the Arts Centre bunker, so no outdoors. Different shaped stage too. If the window opened outside, I guess the lighting would have been different too? It was such a feature of this stage, and quite gorgeous.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-21319999990571784622012-01-26T22:36:14.605+11:002012-01-26T22:36:14.605+11:00Thanks - that probably changes my reading, or at l...Thanks - that probably changes my reading, or at least the reality of the play for me.<br /><br />Sounds like I would have liked to have seen it at Belvoir.Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-64483592221040818712012-01-26T21:19:06.357+11:002012-01-26T21:19:06.357+11:00Plus at Belvoir the window opened out directly int...Plus at Belvoir the window opened out directly into Belvoir Street, so you had the outside coming into the theatre. I imagine a lot of that effect is lost in a different space.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-6242471075433585072012-01-26T19:06:59.832+11:002012-01-26T19:06:59.832+11:00One issue to keep in mind re:the set. This product...One issue to keep in mind re:the set. This production was originally staged at Belvoir which is a very intimate space, vastly smaller than the stage at the Arts Centre. Watching the play the other day, I was a bit taken aback by the sheer space of this boarding-house room, but I expect within Belvoir is would have seemed much more close and claustrophobic - it probably would have had a different Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-80681400180136096172012-01-26T14:13:53.525+11:002012-01-26T14:13:53.525+11:00Ok let's leave it then :) Though I think your ...Ok let's leave it then :) Though I think your reading of W. absolves him of any guilt, where I am arguing that his actions (fair enough, not killing his child, I misremembered that) are tied to moral and ontological collapse. This is from the shave scene:<br /><br />CAPTAIN: (…)[Moved:] Woyzeck, he is a good person, but [with dignity] Woyzeck, he has no morals! Morality is that if one is Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-29398965812900672722012-01-26T12:52:00.841+11:002012-01-26T12:52:00.841+11:00Now you've lost me, 4 Coffins. Woyzeck has a c...Now you've lost me, 4 Coffins. Woyzeck has a child, but there's no mention of his killing his child, let alone because he's not married; he stabs his lover Marie (not his child) in a fit of jealous rage. He is clearly going mad because the doctor's medical experiments on him are making him lose his mind. There's no moral thing I can see anywhere in that play about his being Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-68051023972988502892012-01-26T12:03:19.723+11:002012-01-26T12:03:19.723+11:00"Nothing is true everything is permitted"..."Nothing is true everything is permitted" IS from assassins creed apparently, but via an impressive list: William S. Burroughs, Neitzsche and Dostoevsky ("if there is no god then everything is permitted"). It links a collapse of objective truth (hate this term, prefer "agreed truth") with moral vacuousness, or if you like the creation of particular truths forming theRichard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-21550469263253152332012-01-26T10:09:30.032+11:002012-01-26T10:09:30.032+11:00Hi Unknown! Maybe A Great Australian Tragedy?
And...Hi Unknown! Maybe <i>A</i> Great Australian Tragedy?<br /><br />And hi 4 Coffins. This is quite the conversation! I guess to me the set's space and light had an air of America rather than Europe. I mentioned Elia Kazan's films; also Edward Hopper, those melancholy characters lost in those diagonally lit interiors. I certainly didn't think at all of Chekhov, whom I've seen done anyAlison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-213986512834825502012-01-25T21:22:04.772+11:002012-01-25T21:22:04.772+11:00Alison you are so right - I too sat in the theatre...Alison you are so right - I too sat in the theatre watching Alison Whyte's brilliant Olive and thinking Lawler has written the Australian Willy Loman character. And Robyn Nevin's pitch perfect Emma has the equivalent to the "attention must be paid" speech. It is the the Great Australian Tragedy.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01400137401500268708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-35734173609373026752012-01-25T15:49:31.609+11:002012-01-25T15:49:31.609+11:00The comparison to Chekhov comes from the staging o...The comparison to Chekhov comes from the staging of this play reminding me of several archetypes usually employed - the metaphor of the window as a means of escape, for example, first made famous by Stanislavsky and used in much the same way here (light streaming through the tulle curtains etc), or the vastness and emptiness of the room. (I think I was speciaically reminded of the Hungarians'Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-31836826257806146812012-01-25T12:35:33.309+11:002012-01-25T12:35:33.309+11:00Hooray! Glad to see that someone else appreciates ...Hooray! Glad to see that someone else appreciates the genetics of literature and thought. 'Romanticism was the great ... and represented.' Very well put, Alison.<br /><br />PS Must chase down Woyzeck. That's new to me. Thanks.Alan Skinnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-75635445476054934452012-01-25T10:48:26.852+11:002012-01-25T10:48:26.852+11:00Hi Alan - As soon as I posted that, I thought of B...Hi Alan - As soon as I posted that, I thought of Buchner's Woyzeck (and before that Lenz's The Soldiers, which was written in 1776 and remains startlingly modern). Of course it happened earlier than the 20C, though American tragedy - O'Neil, Williams and Miller especially - put another spin on it. I think, for better and worse, that Romanticism was the great cultural revolution of Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-25994357717452839042012-01-25T09:18:38.430+11:002012-01-25T09:18:38.430+11:00Hi, 4 coffins One of the joys and frustrations of...Hi, 4 coffins One of the joys and frustrations of foreign theatre is unpicking the local from the universal from the fabric of the work. Tennessee Williams, for example, is always American yet Brick and Maggie's struggle is not born of them being American. But if you lessen the American-ness, it doesn't play well. Perhaps that's the sign of a play that is universal: it has roots but Alan Skinnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-2498885228681954172012-01-25T07:10:46.925+11:002012-01-25T07:10:46.925+11:00Thanks, 4 Coffins and Alan. I agree with Alan here...Thanks, 4 Coffins and Alan. I agree with Alan here. One thing I really enjoyed about this production was how Australian it is. But does it really have to stick gumleaves on it (or Carlton terraces) to reassure its audiences that "we" recognise "ourselves"? Are we still that insecure? I didn't feel at all that this was a generic production (it's Belvoir, not STC, btw). Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-54686754972618306592012-01-25T01:22:43.366+11:002012-01-25T01:22:43.366+11:00Hi Alan thanks for that - I think this is a perenn...Hi Alan thanks for that - I think this is a perennial challenge which you outline: whether 'universalising' a play somehow deadens its impact or if it in fact 'essentialises' or 'streamlines' it for a wider audience. The fact is all of the classics have had this done to them on the path to being classics, it just bothered me in this instance because it's my backyard. IRichard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-59590670544525320682012-01-24T22:13:42.472+11:002012-01-24T22:13:42.472+11:00Dear 4 coffins
If I watch, or even talk about, a ...Dear 4 coffins<br /><br />If I watch, or even talk about, a Terence Davies film with Liverpudlians, I always get the sense that a large part of their response is due to the (either child-like or tribal) joy of seeing themselves in the mirror of film. It's unfortunate, because that connection through geography and familiarity often seems to cheat Davies of the wider relevance of his work.<br /Alan Skinnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-66424547166593677612012-01-24T21:50:18.139+11:002012-01-24T21:50:18.139+11:00Thank you, Alison, for the perceptive comments abo...Thank you, Alison, for the perceptive comments about the play and its context. I haven't seen the production and probably wouldn't have if your review hadn't given me some food for thought. It's a play I like but having read it, seen the MTC's 1977 production, and the unfortunate Borgnine/Mills film, it didn't feel necessary to extract more from it. Perhaps now I might.<brAlan Skinnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-9852501938645609612012-01-24T19:55:19.434+11:002012-01-24T19:55:19.434+11:00Thanks for the review Alison. What enraptures me a...Thanks for the review Alison. What enraptures me about the play is that it is so conventional, it's comfortingly conscious of its traditions, and there's great guffaws when the paint shop in Weston St Brunswick or recognisable happenings of Carlton are referred to. I liken it to seeing a Hollywood film shot in Melbourne, where I get all gooey when a location comes up that I know and I Richard Pettiferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916298496154973547noreply@blogger.com