Politics, Poetry and Reviews

Author: Catherine (Page 45 of 54)

Theatre review: Henry IV Part 1

We went to see the local Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry IV Part 1 today.

It was… interesting.  I mean, for one thing, that is a really strange play to choose in isolation; it kind of needs Richard II to help it make sense, or Part II (and ideally Henry V) to finish the arc or something.   I spent most of the interval giving a crash course in who everyone was and what had happened in Richard II and generally how the Wars of the Roses worked to my companion and a random audience member who was shamelessly eavesdropping because she said she was there because her friends were in it and didn’t know what was going on either…

Which is not to say the actors did a bad job of getting this across (though a lot of the plainer explanations occur quite late in the play), just that it was an odd choice for this season’s main Shakespeare production.  Apparently the actors are agitating to do part 2 later in the year – I hope they will, because while I don’t think this was a perfect production, it deserves to be a *finished* one, if you know what I mean.

The production was in modern dress, with Prince Hal bearing a rather distressing resemblance to John Travolta’s character in Grease (he does, however, wear tight leather trousers quite well, so I will forgive him the hair), and the Lancaster faction in blue bow ties and cummerbunds while the Percies wore red.  Hal was a bit disappointing, aside from the leather trousers, though this might have been the fault of the director.  He played a drunk, dissolute and thoroughly unlikeable Hal to the hilt early in the play, and the competent, chivalrous soldier in the late scenes, but the two didn’t really connect.  To my mind, even Dissolute!Hal should have moments when others are not looking at him where you can see that he is watching and playing a role, and this Hal didn’t give that impression, even in that speech about how he is in fact acting the part of the wastrel.  He also missed an opportunity, I think, when he and Falstaff reverse roles in their playacting about Henry IV.  While he delivered the “I do… I shall” line beautifully, it really came from nowhere, and in the next scene with his father he is still slouching and drinking and looking like a sulky teenager.  I could believe that this Hal was the sort of person who needs a battle to fight or a challenge to rise to, but failing that just sort of falls into whatever will keep him from being bored; I couldn’t see him as the consummate politician that I believe Shakespeare wanted him to be.

Hotspur, on the other hand, was fabulous – he really owned the stage whenever he was on it, and had the charisma and bravado and pure, beautiful stupidity required of his character (and Worcester was fabulous in his manipulation).  He was also rather gorgeous, which didn’t hurt.  Lady Percy was also excellent – you could see all the things she was not saying, and all the ways in which she was, on the one hand, aware that there was nothing she could do, but wasn’t going to make it any easier on Hotspur for all that.  A major disappointment of this production was that they cut her role significantly – she was only in one scene – and also cut all the other female roles; Doll Tearsheet and Lady Mortimer disappeared entirely (and if Lady Northumberland was in this play originally, they cut her, too), and Mistress Quickly lost most of her lines.  Instead, they had three scantily clad tavern dancers who had no lines except for a burlesque number at the start (nothing says Shakespeare like electric guitar and burlesque dancing) and spent all the tavern scenes lounging around and snuggling up to the men in the play.  This was fairly annoying.

Falstaff was really first-class.  I actually had moments of liking him, which usually doesn’t happen.  His wit really shone through, and even his worse characterstics were occasionally endearing.  And Henry IV was also excellent.   I liked the way they showed his first speech as a press release from the palace which Hal and the rest were watching from the seedy pub with the dancers.

A nice bit of staging was the way the court scenes were all held on a platform above the main stage, and the rabble were literally an underclass, below them on the stage.  The battle was fun, too, with a semitransparent screen across the stage and much use of paintball, though Hotspur naturally threw away his gun, the better to face off with Hal knife to knife.  This was totally in character.  There were also parts of the battle being broadcast on the video screen above the stage, which gave a sense of chaos in multiple locations – very effective.

Also, the accents were lovely; Northumberland had a nice, fairly subtle Northern accent; Douglas had a not at all subtle, but pretty convincing, Scottish accent, and Owen Glendower chewed the scenery in a suitably over-the-top Welsh accent.  And John of Lancaster was Orlando from the youth production of As You Like It that we saw last month, which was rather nice (and he looked so appropriately young, too).  The musicians had a lot of fun with sound effects, too, though I’m still bemused at all the electric guitar.  And it was very loud.

Altogether, I think it was quite a good production, and quite an interesting one, let down, a little, by Hal and by the infuriating cutting of all the female parts (and it’s not like there was much there in the first place, after all).  But having said that, I’d definitely see the rest of the tetralogy if they did it.  I’d be curious to know where they’d go with Hal, for one thing.

Sonnet: Plato’s Cave

My friend Lea stated categorically that Plato’s Cave was not a sonnet.  So of course I had to prove otherwise…

A group of people chained up in a cave
Watch flick’ring shades, projected on a wall
And tell each other stories, bright and brave
Of creatures, places, objects, great and small.
You cannot blame them if they should mistake
In guessing what these shadows might reflect
These liberties imaginations take
When viewing through glass darkly, indirect.
And yet these shadows tell us of our world –
Or, to speak truly, what our world should be
If we could turn to see it and embrace
Its bright perfections, now in darkness veiled –
But with the bright lens of philosophy
We see what may be, mirrored, face to face.

Parliamentary Democracy: An (opinionated) post for non-Australians

It occurs to me that the more politically-minded among my USA-based friends might have actually gone looking for newspaper articles on Australian politics to try to work out what I was talking about yesterday, and the odds are that you wouldn’t have got very far (the Brits might do better, since we inherited most of our political system from you in the first place).

So, for the curious among you, a  short explanation not so much on what is going on just now but on how and why it can go on in the first place.

Politics: Turnbull for Labor PM? An opinionated political post

Where do I even start?  I’ve been contemplating a post over the last few days about how terrifying and depressing I find US politics… but now Australian politics has descended into farce, which would be a lot funnier if the punchline didn’t look an awful lot like getting the mad monk for PM.  And while he isn’t quite as insane as the GOP seems to be on the subject of women generally, he certainly leans in that direction.

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Theatre review: Behind the scenes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

We went to the Botanical Gardens this evening to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Behind the Scenes.  This is the latest of the Australian Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare in the Park performances, which are always good fun.  Since they were selling tickets cheaply just before Christmas I grabbed a couple for me and Andrew.

It’s utterly, magnificently silly, and a lot of fun.

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Sonnet: Quadrivium (or, Horatio’s Studies)

This poem was written in response to Orson Scott Card’s decidedly homophobic retelling of Hamlet. It had not previously occurred to me that Horatio had this intense, unrequited love for Hamlet, but for some reason, I woke up the morning after reading the above article with the first quartet of this sonnet in my head, and had to write the rest.  And now, in my mind, I can’t read their relationship any other way.

I’m afraid I got a bit carried away with the whole Trivium / Quadrivium thing. Just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t know much more about this than me, students in medieval time were expected to learn the Trivium (Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric) before going to University, where they studied the Quadrivium (Geometry, Astronomy, Music, Arithmetic). And after that, you could study Philosophy. If you were good. 

Also, I got a bit carried away with my own cleverness, which you probably noticed.  But, actually, I do think it’s one of my better poetic efforts, which goes to show that even Orson Scott Card’s most horrifying statements have their uses…

No, scratch that.  Let’s blame this on Shakespeare.  He is a far superior source of inspiration.

Quadrivium

Ah, Hamlet, Wittenberg seems far away,
For us the dons have rung their final bell.
I was your Trivium, when we did play;
You my Quadrivium, and I studied well:

I found in you geometry applied,
I knew each point and angle of your span.
I studied heavenly bodies at your side –
And learned well what a piece of work is man.

The sound of your slow breathing in the night
Was melody that only I could hear.
I counted as the sum of my delight
Each heartbeat, strong, iambic, by my ear.

Though heaven and earth hold greater things for thee
Thou’rt all my dreams, all my philosophy.

Politics: Why we need feminism

Do you know what really bugs me about politics at the moment?  I mean, apart from the hideous leap to the Right on every possible occasion, and the general existence of Tony Abbott?

It’s Julia Gillard.  I really wanted to like her.  More than that, I really wanted her to succeed, even if I didn’t like her.  Deeply frustrated as I am by Labor’s determination to reach out to the right and abandon those of us on the left, if they had at least managed to do so *competently* I’d be happier than I am now.  (And I acknowledge that the Gillard government has had a particularly difficult, and possibly impossible, task, given the configuration of the Lower House.)

If Rudd or Swan or any of the other men in the Labor Party had been Prime Minister and failed at the task of getting their agenda across, nobody would even pause to consider whether this might be evidence that men should not lead political parties.  But I can pretty much guarantee you that unless Gillard makes a spectacular recovery, she’s going to become ‘proof’ that women can’t lead a country properly.

If a man fails, then it reflects on him.  If a woman fails, it reflects on all women.*

This, incidentally, is why we need feminism.

* Of course, the same rule applies to people of colour, Aboriginals, gay people, Muslims, Jews, and, I’m sure, dozens and dozens and dozens of other groups I haven’t mentioned or thought of.  Which is why we need the various -isms attached to viewing people in these groups as people first and people-who-are-members-of-a-particular-g

roup second.  But since Ms Gillard is female, I’m sticking to feminism for the purposes of this post.

Politics: A visit to my local Member

So the High Court of Australia has told the government that they can’t send asylum seekers to Malaysia, because Malaysia’s human rights record isn’t good and it would contravene Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on Refugees.

And apparently some voices in the government, rather than saying, oops, OK then, we’d better not do that, have instead decided that the problem is our approach to human rights (which is certainly problematic, though not in the way they seem to think) and our obligations under the said UN convention.  Tony Abbott is kindly suggesting that we return to the Liberal Party’s Pacific Solution, and Labor is not ruling this out.

Of course, this would require that we cease to be signatories to the UN Convention, but that’s alright, because it’s outdated anyway (drat, I had a truly blood-pressure-raising article for this, but now I can’t find it).  And stopping people smugglers is far more important than protecting people’s human rights.

This makes me livid.

Getup is encouraging people to ring their politicians, which is a step I’ve never taken before – and with the acoustics in my workplace, I’m reluctant to do so.  But my local member has his office on my street, so I dropped in this morning before work to say hello and let him know some of my thoughts on the matter.  The poor man probably knows my thoughts on this and several other matters quite well by now, since I am an inveterate emailer and writer of letters.  Still, I’m told that phone calls and visits are more powerful than letters and emails, and I find this whole situation distressing beyond belief (I also find Labor’s current tendency to let the Liberal party set its agenda baffling and deeply unwise, quite aside from the ethics of this situation).

Visits are much more scary than letters.  I’m quite good at communicating via the written word, after all.  I can make sure I’ve made all my points, and I can put them neatly in order with the right words around them and send them off in a tidy, coherent letter.  Walking into someone’s office and saying “Hello, my name is Catherine and I live in this electorate and I’d like to speak to the MP about asylum seekers” is a different thing entirely.

The MP was, of course, unavailable.  I think he might be in Canberra, actually.  But that was OK – I figured I’d be talking to one of his staff members.  It’s still very, very disconcerting to stand there explaining my political opinions to a complete stranger, as he earnestly takes notes and assures me that the MP will certainly call me back.  I explained briefly that my father’s family were immigrants and economic refugees, that my maternal grandmother’s family had been refugees to Britain from Nazi Austria, and that I felt very strongly that we should be treating our immigrants and asylum seekers better.  I said that the Liberal Party’s treatment of asylum seekers under Howard was one of the reasons that Labor had won the 2007 election (it even broke my grandmother’s 30+ year streak of voting Liberal), and that the Labor Party needs to demonstrate that they are different from the Liberal Party.  I said that Australia is a country of immigrants, that most Australians do in fact feel we should process asylum seekers in Australia and allow genuine refugees to stay.  I did not say that even if most Australians didn’t feel that way it was the right thing to do and the government should show some moral leadership, but I thought it very loudly.

I said all this very politely and hesitantly because while I do believe every word about it, it’s very difficult to be vehement and sure of oneself while standing behind a tall counter in a very quiet, neat, official-looking office and speaking to an intimidatingly well-groomed stranger in an expensive suit, and I felt like a right twit, to be honest.  Though I was informed that the MP does appreciate hearing from people in person and on the phone.

Altogether, it was excruciating.  Letters are much easier… but that’s probably why they carry less weight.  Actually, public speaking is easier, too, at least for me.  You don’t *have* to look anyone in the eye for that.  I’m sort of hoping the MP does not get around to returning my call.  One act outside my comfort zone is enough for today.  But if he does, I’ll say it all again, and hopefully I’ll say it better.

I have no idea whether I will ever do this again.  I have no idea whether it will be less scary next time.  I still prefer letters.  But I really can’t bear for us to go back to the Howard era – and under Labor no less.

If you’re Australian and feel strongly about this, please consider ringing or visiting your local MP.  I promise you, you can’t possibly feel like more of an idiot than I did today.  I’d say you’d have a 99% chance of being more coherent than me, too.  And if you do turn into a shy, stammering idiot like me, at least you get to be a shy, stammering idiot who is trying to fix things…

Politics: An (opinionated) letter in support of marriage equality

Dear –

I’m writing to ask you to stand in support of marriage equality.

I’m writing because I am married.  Because I’m a woman and married to a man, this is an easy statement to make – one which carries no particular political message or weight, except, perhaps, a message of normality.

I have gay friends who are not married and don’t want to be married.

I have gay friends who are married, because they love each other and want to be together for life, and because they live or lived in countries where they were allowed to express this.

I have gay friends who have had commitment ceremonies, because they love each other and want to be together for life, but Australian law sadly refuses to allow them to say to their families and friends “this is my husband” or “this is my wife”.

The anti-gay-marriage lobby is correct to say that these words are special, and mean more than words like ‘partner’ or ‘girlfriend’ or ‘flatmate’.  They carry a message, not just about the relationship between two people, and the shape of a family, but about the society in which that family lives.  They carry a message about what is acceptable and what is less acceptable – about what is legal and what is illicit.  And by making these words the exclusive property of people in formal, heterosexual relationships, it gives acceptability and credibility to the attitude that gay relationships are less formal, less acceptable, less normal.

Like it or not, making gay relationships intrinsically and legally different to heterosexual ones sends a message that it’s OK not to treat gay people the same as straight people, because that is exactly what the government is doing.  Not only is this the sort of thinking that leads to bullying and discrimination, it also allows well-meaning people to stay secure in their prejudices.  Gays must be different – the law says so.  That’s why they can’t marry.  It also makes it easy for less well-meaning people to compare consensual gay relationships to pedophilia or bestiality, because they are all seen as illegal or illicit.

As long as we refuse to allow our gay brothers and sisters to marry the people they love, we encourage these attitudes.

The government’s role is to lead society forward, not be dragged backward by its most prejudiced elements.  It has been shown over and over that gay people can have the same sorts of relationships as straight people, that gay parents can raise happy and well-adjusted children, that, in short, the gender of the people we love has absolutely no relationship to our other qualities.  There is no great social good to be had from limiting marriage to heterosexual unions, but there are plenty of evils in allowing this to continue.

I ask you to support the 60% of Australians who believe that gay marriage should be legal.

My marriage does not need the kind of protection that comes from denying marriage to others.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine

Book review: How I Killed Pluto, and Why It Had It Coming, by Mike Brown

Mike Brown is an astronomer who likes planets (apparently the moon is his nemesis, which I find amusing since his wife is called Diane. Amusingly, despite his sense of humour and the amount of time he spends in this book looking up the names of mythological figures, the coincidence of names has passed him by. But I digress. Already. Oh dear.). He’s the person who discovered the dwarf planet Eris (formerly known as Xena) and her moon, as well as two other very large bodies in the Kuipfler belt (an area beyond Neptune staffed by such well-known dwarf planets as Pluto), Haumea and Makemake (formerly known as Santa and Easterbunny).

Also, he has a daughter who was born right when he was discovering Eris, defending Santa from Spanish pirates, and trying to get Pluto demoted from planet status. Because he is a scientist, he has graphs of all her sleeping and feeding times (which you can find online, incidentally – apparently young Lilah had quite a following), which he analyses in various ways.

Oh, and the relevant part is that he is the author of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, a very funny, completely fascinating and extremely educational book about planets, astronomy, the workings of science, and why you really need a good sense of humour to be married to a scientist.

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