Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui

[sovay]

Hey, I've thought of a meme.

Sparked by the fact that I wouldn't actually want to be a Stoppard character—I'd die in a fire or I'd be A.E. Housman—who would you like to be a character in a play by? Why? Whose plays would you absolutely not want to find yourself in? (Nota bene: to be differentiated from the writers whose plays you feel like you're living in already. Given how most of my friendlist seems to be doing, that way lies Oh, yeah? I'll see your O'Neill and raise you Sarah Kane.) No fair just calling Shakespeare.

Otherwise I've stopped sleeping again, which makes the idea of more frequent posts seem even more remote and exhausting. I should still try.

In the meantime: talk to me about theater!

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Oh. I'd choose to be in a David Rudkin play, though I only know his television work. (Penda's Fen and Artemis 81.) They're full of shifting layers and visions; they discuss everything from Elgar to British paganism; plus, they're queer-themed and rooted in the Midlands.

As to who I'd avoid? Much as I revere his prose, poetry and art, Mervyn Peake. Partly because The Wit to Woo seemed to undo him. Partly because I don't rate his plays that highly (although the adaptation of Mr Pye is lovely). Truthfully, I don't think anyone's staged them in years; I read them in Peake's Progress.

I'm ambivalent about Beckett. John Hurt in Krapp's Last Tape, though: yes.

[sovay]

I'd choose to be in a David Rudkin play, though I only know his television work. (Penda's Fen and Artemis 81.)

You've seen Penda's Fen! I've been trying to get hold of that for years; it's always sounded amazing. I've never heard of Artemis 81.

(I see Rudkin is also responsible for the dramatization of The Master and Margarita that cast Matt Smith as Korovyev/Fagott. I have no idea about the rest of the production, but I've always thought he would have been perfect in that role.)

Truthfully, I don't think anyone's staged them in years; I read them in Peake's Progress.

This past year, I kept hearing about productions as part of his centenary, but i never saw any of them; I wasn't in the right country.

I'm ambivalent about Beckett. John Hurt in Krapp's Last Tape, though: yes.

I should see that.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

It's criminal that Penda's never been released on disc. We saw it screened at a film/gig night last year and walked away awed. Eventually, Martin managed to download the 80s screening from some obscure site (I'd tell you where if we could remember) and burn off a somewhat shonky copy.

Artemis 81 you CAN find on DVD, however. It leans towards sf, and stars Hywel Bennett as a struggling horror writer (sorry if you've read up on it already!) and Sting as an alien "angel". Hard to describe the plot. It's not as accessible as Penda, I think. Three-plus hours long. God knows what the public of 1981 made of it.

Smith, Rudkin, and Master and Margarita? Wow. Did you catch Smith in "Christopher and His Kind" earlier this year?