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Pigeons! Sex! Literature!
Nov. 2nd, 2003 12:30 amI went to see Arcadia at Theatre in the Round tonight. It was rather a last-minute thing, and so I didn't ask any members of the play-reading group to go along with me (although I would have enjoyed their company), because I'd called the theater, and they said they were sold out, but if I came they might have one or two seats that went unclaimed. And so they did, and I got to enjoy the play. The Theatre in the Round is a rather small house, but their round stage works wonderfully well for this play, and I really had a delightful evening.
I felt fortunate that I've read the play before, as Stoppard's word play can be quite intricate at times. I think we did it maybe twice in the play reading group. The reading I remember the best, Mike Ford (John M. Ford, that is) read Septimus Hodge.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eileenlufkin read Thomasina, and pameladean read Hannah Jarvis. I remember that kijjohnson was visiting from out of town, and so was able to come to the meeting, and she read the odious Bernard Nightengale. (I remember well her reading of Bernard's crie de coeur when he realized his carefully elaborated theory about Lord Byron has dissolved into a shambles before him: "Fucked by a dahlia!" How we roared.) I don't remember what part elisem read. Maybe Lady Croom? Nor do I remember whom I read. Perhaps the cuckolded Chater. ("You demand satisfaction, sir? First Mrs. Chater demands satisfaction, then you demand satisfaction. I haven't got the leisure to be fulfilling all these Chater requests for satisfaction." Or something rather like that.)
That's one thing about being in a play-reading group with Mike Ford; he's so good that he can spoil parts for you when you hear them performed by anyone else. Still, this Septimus had the knack of commanding the stage, and was convincingly virile. And of course, he has such marvelous lines. The woman playing Hannah was quite natural, too, and of course, the guy playing Bernard had a ball, but that's really a scene-eating part, so it's understandable.
I really must get a copy of that play and re-read it occasionally because I like it so well. I didn't cry at the ending as I rather hoped I would, and I did when we read it in the group. If any of you locals go see it, let me know what you thought.
I felt fortunate that I've read the play before, as Stoppard's word play can be quite intricate at times. I think we did it maybe twice in the play reading group. The reading I remember the best, Mike Ford (John M. Ford, that is) read Septimus Hodge.
eileenlufkin read Thomasina, and pameladean read Hannah Jarvis. I remember that kijjohnson was visiting from out of town, and so was able to come to the meeting, and she read the odious Bernard Nightengale. (I remember well her reading of Bernard's crie de coeur when he realized his carefully elaborated theory about Lord Byron has dissolved into a shambles before him: "Fucked by a dahlia!" How we roared.) I don't remember what part elisem read. Maybe Lady Croom? Nor do I remember whom I read. Perhaps the cuckolded Chater. ("You demand satisfaction, sir? First Mrs. Chater demands satisfaction, then you demand satisfaction. I haven't got the leisure to be fulfilling all these Chater requests for satisfaction." Or something rather like that.)That's one thing about being in a play-reading group with Mike Ford; he's so good that he can spoil parts for you when you hear them performed by anyone else. Still, this Septimus had the knack of commanding the stage, and was convincingly virile. And of course, he has such marvelous lines. The woman playing Hannah was quite natural, too, and of course, the guy playing Bernard had a ball, but that's really a scene-eating part, so it's understandable.
I really must get a copy of that play and re-read it occasionally because I like it so well. I didn't cry at the ending as I rather hoped I would, and I did when we read it in the group. If any of you locals go see it, let me know what you thought.