If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead

[sovay]

Today has been very social, though not at all unpleasant. My brother's godparents are visiting from the Southwest, so we spent the afternoon with my family and then a sort of pre-Memorial Day dinner, which turned out surf-and-turf. There was way too much zucchini. There was not too much key lime pie. My three-year-old niece has discovered a pair of small stuffed animal rabbits which originally belonged to me and my brother—Bunnicula and Butterscotch—and is carrying them everywhere, even to dinner. She has decided that she wants a goat as a pet. (Suggestions that she ask for a pony instead were met with blank disdain.) I am no help to her parents in this argument. I think a goat in the family would be a great idea.

In the evening I met rushthatspeaks for a sold-out showing of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) at the Brattle Theatre: I thought it was great. It's more overtly supernatural than the series overall—it's focused on the most overtly supernatural strand—but it's also decisively grounded by Sheryl Lee's performance, with Laura Palmer's very realistic anger, damage, and agency (it was not clear in the show that her final status was a choice rather than an inevitable consequence or a weird side effect of the manner of her death; the film offers her no good options, but she absolutely opts for the best of them, which makes it strangely difficult for me to classify the film as horror, even though content-wise I don't know what else it should be) interlocking across registers with the characters who live in the soapier layers of the plot. I was glad to see Harry Dean Stanton turn up in the supporting cast, because he feels existentially like someone who should inhabit a David Lynch universe. Now we just need to finish watching the remaining half of Season Two and figure out what to do about the third-season revival.

A later interlude of placidly watching candymaking videos by Public Displays of Confection with spatch was interrupted by Autolycus violently throwing up all over a box of hardcover Le Guin and Tanith Lee, but fortunately the box had a lid on it, the books have been transplanted to a high shelf, and a very shaken small cat was comforted after we emergency-mopped the floor. (There was much anxious purring. We reassured him that we know he does not throw up maliciously. He never looks like he enjoys it.)

Unless it gets a National Theatre-style broadcast, I don't have a hope of seeing the Crucible's Julius Caesar on account of it being in Sheffield and me being on the other side of an ocean, but it's being done with a diverse, gender-equal cast and I wish I could see it, because Zoë Waites has a hell of a lean and hungry look:



We are talking about seeing Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967) tomorrow. I haven't seen the movie since 2010, when it was also on film at the Brattle and I loved it. I should get to bed.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Is....is that a genderswapped Julius Caesar? (I've gone over to the website and it looks like maybe partially.) THIS IS EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER WANTED IN MY LIFE. WHY MUST IT BE ACROSS AN OCEAN.

[sovay]

Is....is that a genderswapped Julius Caesar?

It is a partly genderswapped Julius Caesar! I wish I had a teleporter to lend you!

(There was a legendary all-female production at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012, starring Harriet Walter and Cush Jumbo. I minded being on the wrong side of the Atlantic from that one, too.)

[ethelmay]

Do my eyes deceive me, or does Zoë Waites somewhat resemble a younger Harriet Walter? Because I had already thought of that and then saw you mentioned HW.

Wait (no pun intended): I see someone else has had the same idea. From 1997, "Waites is much more able to involve us in the drama by grabbing our sympathies. She looks like a young Harriet Walter and in only her second Shakespearean role, her low voice and quiet self-confidence lend her an impressively relaxed quality which suggest a very bright future." https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/arts-review-likewise-variable-1292767.html

[sovay]

Do my eyes deceive me, or does Zoë Waites somewhat resemble a younger Harriet Walter?

Just for the data point: your eyes do not deceive you. I think the resemblance would be even stronger with shorter hair.

From 1997, "Waites is much more able to involve us in the drama by grabbing our sympathies. She looks like a young Harriet Walter and in only her second Shakespearean role, her low voice and quiet self-confidence lend her an impressively relaxed quality which suggest a very bright future.

Nice!

[ethelmay]

There was something else that looked familiar about her, and I finally figured out that her lower arms and hands look a whole lot like mine.

Also, re ZW with short hair: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRbcZQ-qIa2TAEKtDj_QeugW_pB-M8v0B7q4g6zY2phGC8X_4DviA

[sovay]

There was something else that looked familiar about her, and I finally figured out that her lower arms and hands look a whole lot like mine.

I will take your word for it. My mental image of you is a kylix with an owl on it.

Also, re ZW with short hair

Thanks!

[lauradi7dw]

I didn't know about their JC, but I saw the Henry IV in the same, um, prison (in a gimicky way, the ushers were all dressed to be guards, but that didn't add to the performance).
HW commenting
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/oct/15/harriet-walter-donmar-shakespeare-women-henry-iv-julius-caesar

[sovay]

I didn't know about their JC, but I saw the Henry IV in the same, um, prison

What did you think of it?

[lauradi7dw]

HW (and Henry, I guess) had a proportionally small part. It was the people I had never heard of that impressed me. I thought Falstaff was the best I've ever seen, in any context. Ashley McGuire played a Death Eater in one of the Potter movies and a midwife in Bridget Jones's Baby, but most of her non-theater roles are in things I am not familiar with. I can't say why I think she was the best - it's just my memory. Clare Dunne as Hal was good. Really, pretty much everybody was good, but as mentioned, I found the guards (who briefly stepped into the action, rather than just being ushers) a bit off.
I am glad I spent time searching around on youtube just now, because I found this (the cast, in a music video. The gray sweats etc were the costumes in the play) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t1bzFY7cxI