Reading in the dark

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Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kestrell" journal:

April 3rd, 2008
01:12 pm [Link]	Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!: theatre alexx_kay and I will be attending the 3 o'clock performance of username: faust http://kestrell.livejournal.com/423183.html#cutid1 since this performance will be providing a descriptive track for visually-impaired attendees. Also of note for Sunday performances is William Shakespeare Vampire, Hunter http://community.livejournal.com/bard_in_boston/63160.html Current Location: aerye Current Music: www.937mikefm.com Tags: faust, shakespeare, theatre (2 comments \| Braille me)
February 13th, 2008
12:03 pm [Link]	Theatre on the Hellmouth: A review of Teller's Macbeth This past Sundy I was part of a group that made a mad-dash Shakespeare road trip to catch Teller's production of Macbeth http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellersmacbethindex.html which is currently playing in Middleton, New Jersey. I loved it, although a couple of the group felt jipped as they claimed they expected more blood. This is kind of ironic, as I was probably the most dedicated horror fan in the bunch, and I felt there was just the right amount of blood. Teller's violence is typically more implied than blatant, and in his essay on the production, he mentioned how he was captivated by the work of Alfred Hitchcock from the time he was a child. How to summarize the tone of the production? Think Hitchcock meets Clive Barker meets Shakespeare. A lot of what I loved about it was the use of the stage as a liminal space and the implication that all of the action was taking place on the threshhold of Hell, which, as the Elizabethan name for the trapdoor from which the witches raised their apparitions was actually named "hell," made it both nicely metaphorical and literal. ( notes on the play ) Current Location: aerye Current Mood: fannish Current Music: "Somebody's Watching Me" Tags: horror, shakespeare, teller, theatre (2 comments \| Braille me)
September 22nd, 2007
12:35 pm [Link]	Review: The Winter's Tale, performed at MIT on Thursday, September 20 Thursday night alexx_kay and I went to a production of "The Winter's Tale" at MIT put on by students of THE Cambridge University American Stage Tour (CAST) http://castonline.org/ and while initially I had my doubts about how enjoyable it would be due to the various ambiguities of the play itself along with the fact that it was a student production, I can definitively state that this was an amazing production that demonstrated once again that these plays were meant to be experienced live, not just read. Indeed, one of the aspects of CAST's production which made the play so much livelier than I expected was that the company exploited every possible moment for making the play come alive to the audience. While it didn't occur to me at the time, this sense of liveliness was kicked off when we bumped into eanja and fabrisse before the show and then when we took our seats found ourselves sitting in front of xiphias and cheshyre, maintainers of the wonderful bard_in_boston, virtual home of all things Shakespeare in the Boston area. The play itself is, as I commented, a bit ambiguous in its categorization: while the theme itself is very dark--jealousy and the destruction it enacts not only upon individuals but upon families and social order--the play is often listed as a comedy, because nobody actually dies (thanks, Fabrisse). According to Marjorie Garber's book _Shakespeare After All_, Winter's Tale can be categorized as one of the late romances, along with Tempest and Midsummer's Night, and also as one of the triad of "jealousy plays" which include Much Ado and Othello. The players made a creative choice to highlight the comedic parts of the play while not downplaying the darker elements, the two main means for doing this being the use of puppets and the use of character/costuming references to Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_. Yet the use of children's toys and stories did not detract from the dark theme of jealousy and violence. As anyone who knows about the secret history of Punch and Judy can tell you, violence is woven through the oldest puppet plays. And as for stories, a winter's tale is a story told during the darkest part of the year. ( continued below cut ) Current Location: aerye Current Mood: mercurial Current Music: www.wmbr.org Tags: events, mit, reviews, shakespeare, theatre (9 comments \| Braille me)
August 23rd, 2007
01:58 pm [Link]	Richard III as gothic horror alexx_kay posted this to his LJ, and the video in question underscores why I refer to Richard 3 as gothic horror. As alexx_kay notes in his post, you can see us in the lower right corner--or rather, you can see the back of our heads--and witness our response to being referred to as the "cheap seats." One of the reasons why this piece struck us as particularly funny was that, when we left Melville Keep to go to the performance, herooftheage had a vat of fake blood bubbling on the stove which he intended on using in a Pennsic performance of "The Green Knight," and M. was gently attempting to suggest that he really didn't need to splatter the first ten rows... Note: You probably do not want to be eating or drinking while viewing this video. block quote start Thanks to riba_rambles, the marvelous Michael Anderson meta-Shakespeare piece A Bloody Deed http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8371319459486098655 is now available on-line. Everyone I know who has a sense of humor owes it to themselves to spend half an hour watching this. kestrell and I were actually at this performance (you can see the backs of our heads), and bought the (small-run) DVD ["Freestyle Shakespeare"] as soon as we found it was available. I've since shown this sketch off to dozens of people at every opportunity. Now, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can spread it even further. Enjoy! block quote end Current Location: aerye Current Mood: macabre Tags: events, horror, richardiii, shakespeare (5 comments \| Braille me)
August 13th, 2007
11:08 am [Link]	Redfeather Theatre's Richard III well worth the trip Richard3 is one of my favorite bad boys, and, despite the fact that his is supposedly one of the most frequently produced of the Shakespeare plays, I have rarely had an opportunity to hear it in live theatre. So when I found out that there was going to be a production on my birthday, I begged alexx_kay to take me to see it. Everything about the production was fabulous, and I urge anyone who loves this play to go see it. Timothy John Smith, the actor who plays Richard, is, in the best tradition of timeless villains, alternately seductive and terrifying. Indeed, the director pointed out in the program for the play that R3 is all about the seductiveness of evil. I can also see why R3 is difficult to produce--Richard is not only the title character but the puppetmaster who controls everything else on the stage, until the very end when he brings about his own demise. The edits to the script and the pacing on this production were so tight that they actually contribute to the sense of Richard being caught up in his own machinations, and Smith manages to convey Richard's increasing fury and paranoia as he speeds toward his own self-destruction. One of the other difficulties in producing R3 is that there are so many characters, and keeping track of the changing factions, traitors and counter-traitors, requires a scorecard. This production kindly provides one, a geneology of the families involved (yes, everyone is basically related to everyone else, or has killed someone else's relative, which is one reason why I refer to this play as a "gothic" rather than a "history"). Like Lawrence Olivier's film production of R3, this production begins with the final coronation scene of Henry VI, Part 3, although this production uses the setting of a 1920s party, complete with two flappers singing jazz tunes, to introduce the characters and set up the first monologue. The moment when the flappers are singing a Betty Boop rendition of "I Want to Be Loved By You" and Richard walks onstage is rather ominous. Another trick used two distinguish between the feuding factions is the use of costumes, with the older families being dressed in conservative suits while the newer ascendents to the throne dressed as the nouveau riche. The production also features some cross-gender casting, and in the case of the relationsip between Richard and Buckingham, this further adds to the sense of politics making "strange bedfellows." Indeed, this play features a number of very strong speeches for women, and the relationship between Richard and the women, whom he often furiously accuses of being changeable despite his own chameleon nature, is one of the fascinating aspects of this truly psychological drama. Last of all, I must say, the setting of Green Hill Park in Worcester which was used for the stage is truly wonderful: the park creates a sense of being in an isolated greenwood, and it also compliments the garden party turned battle field which describes the setting of the play. You should, however, bring bug spray and a light jacket or sweater. Accessibility: Those with hearing impairments may have trouble following some of the dialogue, as there are a few points where the actor speaking is turned in such a way that he/she is not facing the audience. Also, while the path from the parking lot to the seating is not long, it is up a somewhat steep hill, which for a short part has uneven flagstones: I'm not sure if this would impede wheelchair users, but if the wheelchiar can travel over grass, it should not be an issue. Richard 3 runs from August 1-19. Showtime is 7 p.m. and tickets are $20 ($15 for students and seniors). Discount tickets for students through grade 12 and their teachers are available Redfeather Theatre Company (Worcester)] http://www.redfeatherco.org/ Redfeather Theatre is a professional acting troupe in residence at the College of the Holy Cross. Dedicated to mounting outdoor productions of Shakespeare's plays, the company presents the Worcester Summer Shakespeare Festival in the Memorial Grove Amphitheatre at beautiful Green Hill Park in Worcester, MA. Cast members include professional actors, members of the Worcester community, Holy Cross alumni and student apprentices - all working together to present magical, memorable summer theatre. Current Location: aerye Current Mood: content Tags: bad boys, shakespeare, theatre (1 comment \| Braille me)
July 22nd, 2007
09:14 am [Link]	Midsummer Night's Scream Last night alexx_kay and I went to hear the Shakespeare in the Commons production of "Midsummer Night's Dream," but when we arrived we were told it would be a tech rehearsal due to a couple of rained-out rehearsals earlier in the week. alexx_kay and I were okay with this, but once the play began, issues seemed to be about more than just timing and tech problems. In a word, DayGlo. That is, costumes and hair. Also, there was singing. The costumes, singing, and other directorial choices seemed to indicate that the setting was supposed to be an '80s MTV video (alexx_kay's interpretation) or a '70s rock opera (my interpretation). This may have still worked, but a choice was made to forego the rhythm of the blank verse in favor of something more original. The speech Oberon has when he incants his love spell over Titania's sleeping form was delivered at a raging shout, which was really too bad since the actor playing Oberon had a stately and resonant voice which. If he had been allowed to deliver the lines as an incantation, the speech would have been breathtaking. alexx_kay has commented before on how it is a bad idea for me to get bored. I began musing aloud about the potential for Midsummer to be done as a slasher movie, which alexx_kay promtly titled "A Midsummer Night's Scream" (I could almost feel guilty that I recently made my sweetie give a close reading of "Behind the Mask"...almost), and we proceeded to spend the rest of the time at the play and on the ride home working on the concept. alexx_kay typed it up and you can read it here http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/174656.html#cutid1 Current Location: aerye Current Mood: Meta Girl Tags: horror, media studies, meta, shakespeare, writing (1 comment \| Braille me)
July 9th, 2007
11:38 am [Link]	A media-saturated weekend: Shakespeare, Readercon, comics+a new venue for horror criticism Yesterday alexx_kay offered to read the newish Buffy comic to me (yes, I have my own personal fanboy: life is good), after which we watched the second season of "Slings and Arrows." For those of you who have not yet heard of "Slings and Arrows," it is a Canadian t.v. show (2003-2006) about Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), who is hired to take over the artistic directorship of the New Burbage Shakespeare festival, which was the scene of his nervous breakdown seven years before. I can try to offer some more description, but it will never do the show justice--just watch the first five minutes of episode 1, season 1, and you will either fall in love with it or you won't. One of the ongoing themes of the show is the struggle to keep Shakespeare's plays relevant in changing times, and how individuals struggle to find a way to connect personally and passionately with works which are so burdened by the meanings imposed upon them by self-declared experts--theatrical, critical, and corporate-- who insist on interpreting the plays for us. Each season of the t.v. series focuses on a different production, and each production plays out a different overarcing theme. Geoffrey's madness is of a Shakespearean sort, both cynical and romantic, as he struggles to maintain his inner vision of a life that is passionate, personal, and yet connected to everyday experience. Saturday I attended Readercon with issendai where, almost as soon as we arrived, we roved the book store in search of plunder, only emerging after spending all of our money (we were very well-behaved book pirates). After the bookstore plundering, we split up to go to separate panels. My first panel turned out to be my favorite panel of the day. This was the Dead Reckoning panel which featured an interview with Jack Haringa who is co-editor (along with S.T. Joshi) of Dead Reckonings, a new review journal of horror, suspense, and dark fantasy published by Hippocampus Press. Haringa, also known as mssrcrankypants, was extremely knowledgeable and witty about horror and horror criticism. I loved his point about how horror criticism written by reviewers who are also fans needs to apply the same critical standards to the horror genre as would be applied to analyzing any other work. My own feeling about this is that many fans interpret the radical aspects of horror--its open-ended narratives, its ability to interpret ambiguities in the text in multiple ways, and its tendency to portray the world as strange, uncanny, and other--as anti-intellectual, rather than as a narrative practice that allows for circumventing reader expectations and shrugging off the rules of storytelling as dictated by realism. I am very much looking forward to what sounds as if it will be a critically robust but open-minded venue for reviewing horror. Even after the panel broke up, I found it hard to leave but instead kept getting pulled into discussions of favorite horror works: I can't tell you how much I would like to just hang out for a day having intelligent conversation about horror. (As a sidenote, I'm curious if I was the only femlae attendee for this panel, or if there were others who just didn't speak?) My longing for intelligent horror seemed to have influenced the books I bought. After some intense browsing and a serious disappointment--I managed to locate a collection of stories by Margery Lawrence, but it cost $75--I picked up a couple of books from Small Beer Press, including the new Elizabeth Hand book, _Generation Loss_ (an extra perk was having the chance to talk to Gavin Grant, a man with a very nice voice). I also found a copy of Angela Carter's _Wise Children_, one of the few things by her I did not already have, and a couple of editions of The Mammoth Book of Year's Best Horror, edited by Stephen Jones, which I absolutely love. I now have the volumes for the years 1989, 1997, and 2000. I intend to collect the volumes for the years 1998-current, as this is a really informative series that focuses on quality horror. I'm also interested in related series that focus on horror. Unfortunately, because so much non-mainstream horror is published through small presses in limited printings, this remains one of the literary forms I have the most trouble getting my hands on, both because of its pricing and because it almost never makes it into accessible (electronic) formats. I have toyed with the idea of writing a book proposal for a collection of stories by women ghost story writers of the 1920s and 1930s, just to have the chance to get access to one of my favorite subgenres. Current Location: aerye Current Music: www.937mikefm.com Tags: books, comics, horror, readercon, shakespeare (8 comments \| Braille me)
February 6th, 2007
10:48 am [Link]	Kes: I'm definitely going to the Shakespeare talk if anyone wants to go with. MIT Communications Forum subscriber: We are presenting three forums this term, a truncated calendar as we prepare for the fifth Media in Transition conference in late April. Note that all three forums will take place in building 3, room 270. Spring 2007 Forums: Remixing Shakespeare Thursday Feb. 15 5-7 pm 3-270 New technologies are enabling forms of borrowing, appropriation and “remixing” of media materials in exciting, provocative ways. In this Forum, two MIT scholars who have studied and written about the remixing of Shakespeare will describe their research, show some salient audio-visual examples and discuss the implications of their work for contemporary culture. Literature Professor Peter Donaldson is director of the Shakespeare Electronic Archive which since 1992 has used computers to develop new ways of studying the text, image and film records of Shakespearean publication and production. Literature Professor Diana Henderson is the author of Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare Across Time and Media and A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen. She is an active participant in MIT’s partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The forum will be moderated by Mary Fuller of the Literature Faculty. What's New at the Media Lab Thursday March 1 5-7 pm 3-270 ( continued below cut ) Current Mood: excited Current Music: www.wumb.org Tags: events, mit, shakespeare (Braille me)
February 3rd, 2007
06:29 pm [Link]	Shakespeare in science fiction and fantasy +what I'm reading I'm currently working on a review of Elizabeth Hand's _Illyria_ and contemplating what it is about Shakespeare stories, particularly the romances, which SF writers find so fascinating. My main thought is that it is precisely the fantastic dream-like nature of the settings which highlights the commonality of the human thoughts and emotions expressed by the characters across time, distance, and cultures. Also, the story reminds me of this song to the point where I now think of it as "The Elizabeth Hand song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gY7UMtrTkg Must go finish this review because the new Aegypt book by John Crowley just showed up, and after that I read and review Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage (Hardcover) by Sue Short Misfit Sisters assesses female characterization in recent screen horror, examining how a female rite of passage can be seen to operate in such texts as Scream, The Craft, Ginger Snaps and The Ring. Drawing parallels with folk tales it evaluates the trials female protagonists undergo in their journey to womanhood, arguing that the focus given to female characters and experiences, the powers they are given, and the ways in which they are tested demand that the genre be critically re-appraised. Hardcover: 230 pages Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (January 9, 2007) Current Location: aerye Current Music: Hello Mudda, Heelo Fadda www.wers.org Tags: books, reviews, shakespeare (3 comments \| Braille me)
November 8th, 2006
05:06 pm [Link]	Shakespeare in modern media book and MIT lecture Kes: Anyone interested in going with me? authors@mit presents DIANA E. HENDERSON COLLABORATIONS WITH THE PAST Reshaping Shakespeare Across Time and Media DAY: Tuesday DATE: November 14, 2006 TIME: 5:30 pm ROOM: MIT 32-155, Stata Center, 32 Vassar St, Cambridge MAP: http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=32 Please join us as MIT's Diana Henderson discusses her new book, "Collaborations with the Past." By concentrating on rich yet problematic instances of Shakespeare's reanimation in such quintessentially modern forms as the novel and film, from Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth" to Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V", Diana Henderson sketches a complex history of the pleasures and difficulties that ensue when Shakespeare and modern artists collaborate. Diana E. Henderson is Professor of Literature at MIT. She is the author of "Passion Made Public: Elizabethan Lyric, Gender, and Performance" and the editor of "A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen." "Collaborations with the Past" is published by Cornell University Press, 2006 This event is sponsored by authors@mit, a lecture series cosponsored by MIT Libraries and The MIT Press Bookstore. This event is free and wheelchair accessible. For more information call 253-5249, email authors@mit.edu, or check: http://web.mit.edu/bookstore/www/events/ Tags: events, shakespeare (2 comments \| Braille me)
July 21st, 2006
04:40 pm [Link]	Boston: Taming of the Shrew w/ audio description Kes: Oo, anyone want to go with me? So not PC, but probably still my favorite play by Will. Posted to the MAVIS mailing list http://mail.mass-blind-students.org Free Audio Described Performance of William Shakespeare's TAMING OF THE SHREW on The Boston Common Date: August 10, 2006 Time: 8:00pm Pre-show begins at 7:30pm Where: The Parade Grounds on the Boston Common, Chairs Provided Rain date: August 11th Primary Describer: Alice Austin Secondary Describer: Laura Pailler Willis ( continued below cut ) Current Mood: Willing Tags: access, events, shakespeare (3 comments \| Braille me)
June 27th, 2006
02:44 pm [Link]	Google Shakespeare page From this month's Google Friends newsletter The book's the thing In this all too frantic media-saturated world of ours, sometimes it's good to ponder the eternal truths. Many words about timeless matters belong to the one and only William Shakespeare. We celebrate his considerable body of work with a special Google Book Search site that includes all of his plays - comedy, tragedy, romance, history. From here you can also download Google Earth to visit the Bard of Avon's own Globe Theatre and other landmarks from his works and times. We are proud to support New York City's annual Shakespeare in the Park festival, and wanted to extend its reach across the Internet. Take time to savor the language you see on the screen! http://www.google.com/shakespeare Tags: google, shakespeare (Braille me)

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