I’m busy watching the Royal Variety Performance, and one of my bug-bears has reared its ugly head: The trans-sexual song. You know, one of those songs popularised by a person of one gender… yet performed by a person of another gender. And rather than simply sing the song as was written, they take the decision to swap the words around so they don’t sound, y’know, gay or something.
Sometimes, it’s fine. For example, ‘The Power of Love‘ is a serial trans-sexual, and “You are my lad-ee, and I am your man” does not sound so unnatural next to its opposite (“I am your lady, and you are my man,” which I assume is the original).
At other times, however, the sex-change makes a mockery of the song and its lyrics. In tonight’s gala, young crooners Teatro gave a harmonised rendition of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ from Boubil and Schonberg’s private mint, Les Miserables. But, the song was given a sex change, and such poignant lines such as “he slept a summer by my side” and “he was gone when autumn came” were emasculated. Since the song is about stolen innocence, broken trust and the crushed dreams of a teenaged girl, the emotional intensity of the song was dropped into the surgeon’s waste bin along with its gonads.
Its irritating that these guys are making a living by taking this kind of liberty, and calling it art. I would rather they kept to the original lyrics, and made a stab at trying to convey the original emotions. Voice and music are powerful enough to communicate such things, regardless the gender of the person singing.
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Tag: Theatre (Page 6 of 9)
Reviews, comments and thoughts on theatre
Sam Marlowe is scathing about Shilpa’s new show:
Given the anguish and humiliation that Shilpa Shetty suffered in the Celebrity Big Brother house this year, the British public are probably prepared to forgive her almost anything. Even so, she is pushing her luck with this shoddy piece of opportunism.
She should have taken my advice and gone for a six-part drama.
This week, there has been a short online discussion about blogging on the (virtual pages) of The Guardian. Michael Billington asserted the need for professional, paper based reviewers, but I think some of his comments betray a patronising tone. He is simply wrong when he claims that
The critic, unlike the blogger, also has a duty to set any play or performance in its historical context.
… since blogs have the same responsibility if they want to be considered relevant (or simply, ‘good’). Billington is taken to task for this misunderstanding in the comments, and also for a misplaced nostalgia when he says:
The blog seems to me have supplanted the kind of prolonged argument about the arts that once took place in the correspondence columns of newspapers. Example: years ago, when I rashly suggested that Shaw was the best dramatist after Shakespeare, a considered, if heated, debate went on for weeks in the paper itself. Now such a suggestion would be a 48-hour wonder on the blog.
But that’s the point, says Ian Shuttleworth in the comments:
Blogs in this respect are filling a gap that has for some time and increasingly been left by editorial neglect in print publications.
Meanwhile, Lyn Gardner is a good deal more positive about the medium of blogging. It was her contribution which drew me to the debate, because last year I remember she used The Guardian’s theatre blog to publish a dissenting review of Katie Mitchell’s Waves, which had been panned by… none other than Michael Billington. Sadly, an online argument about Mitchell’s (admittedly divisve) work never materialised. This was a shame, since this sort of debate, between critics who care, is a feature which Billington himself misses. Blogs can complement theatre criticism, not challenge and marginalise it in the way that TV and film reviews have done.
Other writers also lament the absence of such robust industry. I am reminded of Michael Coveney’s essay in Prospect (November 2005). Here is a telling paragraph:
But the truth is that newspapers increasingly devote largely uncritical coverage to the latest product of the publicity machine … Previews and interviews now take precedence over critical responsibility. But the idea that they do so in order to meet a public demand is, I believe, false. Anyone under the age of 30 who wants to read about pop music, new film and reality television knows where to go. That place is not the broadsheets, but magazines and the internet. So the liberal, professional intelligentsia who read the broadsheets are confronted with coverage they don’t want and comment on “high culture” by people who often know less about it than they do.
The Guardian’s consideration of blogging is welcome, but ultimately, I cannot help but think that these critics are arriving late onto the scene, when they should have been in the vanguard. When Natasha Tripney writes
Bloggers are not constricted by word count or deadlines, and have free reign to write about what they want, when they want
or when Michael Billington types
critics are much more accountable for their opinions… the blog also gives a voice to the hitherto voiceless
we are reading insightless cliché – Many of us have been identifying these features for yonks! To paraphrase Michael Coveney, bloggers are being presented by comment on “blog culture” by people who often know less about it than they do.
Layers of sponge, layers of meaning: My mother does a fantastic line in meta-cakes. Last year, we had the Famous Blog Cake. This year, we have a representation of the theatre production I have been working on, rendered in the medium of icing and lego.
The show combines film and live performance, where the characters conjure “seventeen scenarios for the theatre”. So my birthday cake is, in fact, a rendering in icing of a rendering on film of a rendering on stage of an imagined story. That’s at least four layers, which works out at two-per sponge tier.
I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of the little man with the beard and computers, standing off-stage/cake. It is meant to be me.
In fact, I was presented with the cake by means of a short video, e-mailed to me while I was at work. Given the context, it was the perfect combination of medium and message. It is unfortunate that the sublime wit might not be apparent to anyone other than myself, but I sincerely believe it was a very clever creation.
I can feel sweat in my groin as I stagger through the gates and out of the wasteland. The air cools my face, but my baggage weighs me down and I am heavy on my feet. I am alone again, and immediately the images I have left behind begin to distort and fade.
…
The bar is too familiar. People from other parts of my life appear right in front of me. How is it possible that they be here too? Sometimes they recognise me, and sometimes they ignore me. Either way, they disappear just as quickly. With no-one to talk to, I turn around and give the musicians my attention. Their fashions, and the décor of the room, have been carefully picked. Observing the other clientele, I see they are totally credulous. With their hats at jaunty angles, it is clear that their outfits have been carefully chosen too. It is as if they are just playing the part of illicit revellers in this underground den. The feeling of solitude returns as I begin to think that this is just another installation.
…
Through the door, and suddenly we find ourselves outside, walking through a field. The masked faces in the crowd carry me with them like a wave. No time to stop and think about what we have just seen.
…
The man is already naked and lashed to the chair when I arrive. The crowd know that this is wrong in so many ways, but their masks hide whatever it is they might be thinking. We are all free to jostle for a better view of this ritual, his exposure. His tormentor circles with apparent menance… but is that a glint of benevolence in his eye? Peering through this mask and the wire fence, I cannot be sure. Two hundred white faces look on, without emotion, as the man in the chair is beaten, tortured, broken over the back of the chair. His adversary flies around him like a bat.
…
Whatever happens next, it is never what I expect. A man abruptly eats an apple handed to him by a woman – He devours it whole and complete, including the core. Then he pours a jug of water over himself (and me), and tries to ravage her. She just laughs, and conceals herself under the blanket.
…
These grotesque masks bring out a feral side. Women scamper past me down corridors like rats. Men push open doors and barge past me. And they do so with such purpose of stride and movement, I begin to wonder whether they are fellow voyeurs like me, or perhaps undercover performers. And yet even I am changed. I don’t run like the others… but I become a kind of sociopath, wilfully invading the privacy of the rooms I find. I steal sweets from a jar that is clearly not meant for me, and rip a bible page off the wall. When I find some cards on a table spelling the word ‘SLOTH,’ I change them to read ‘SLUT’. I follow a girl into a hotel room, and sit on the bed while she undresses.
…
I ignore the ostentatious coffin of baby, which is easy to find, and head to the upper floors. I spend delightful clandestine moments alone in a labyrinth of corridors and side rooms. I learn to turn the handle of every door I find. Most are locked, but every now and then a few open for me, and I slip into the darkness. I find an archive, with rows and rows of shelves stacked with identical files. A single lamp struggles to light the whole room, but only I am looking.
…
These people seem to defy gravity, as they pirouette across walls and ceilings. In a roadside diner, somewhere in Small Town America (I know where we are, because the waitress wears roller skates), a man chases a woman under tables and over the counter. She welcomes his advances, and yet somehow she fears him, and cannot allow him to come as close as she would like. This conflict persists throughout all the interactions in this place. Lust strolls past me on the kerbside, but violence and resentment lurks in every dark corner. They jump out for a moment, and then disappear into the shadows, like a mugging.
…
Down in the bar, and there is a palpable apprehension among us all. We know we have bought into something we do not understand. We know we have taken a risk, but we are sure that we will be strong enough to resist the conjuring tricks of these people. But then they force these white masks onto our faces, and shove us into an elevator. Its grate smashes against the wall with a clatter that makes us all jump. I want so desperately to understand and unlock their plan for us, but when we are separated from one another, it is clear that this will not be possible. Things will happen that they will not show me. I hear laughter and screams echoing down corridors, and throughout, the feeling never leaves me that somewhere else, on another floor, there is some wild act of debauchery taking place, from which I have been excluded.
…
A set of winding stairs, and a weed-riddled track. Now I am at the same gates once more, but I do not recognise them. A burly man lets me in, as I sidestep a group of twitching, anxious youths. They offer me money for something I do not yet possess. I pass through, and although they clamour to follow, their path is blocked. And then I am alone again, standing outside a church. I have lost my sense of direction. I am late, confused.
I’ve just spotted some interesting writing on the performance by Patrick Judd at the London Theatre Blog. He also stole sweets…. I caught one of the last performances of Faust by the inimitable Punchdrunk. However, The Red Death Is Coming, so don’t miss it.