Theatre for Young Audiences

Since my last post, I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, one issue of OK Magazine, one issue of The Economist, one issue of The New Scientist, and two issues of The New Yorker.

I've also read two interesting books, Philip Pan's Out of Mao's Shadow, and Splendid Exchange by William Bernstein. Pan's book is about the lack of approval for several Chinese people's activities -- a documentary film maker, a doctor, etc. It was clearly written and was a quick read, but it had that superficiality that is so common in books written by reporters. Splendid Exchange is about how trade changed the world, starting with the Ancient World, and culminating with the significance of the Panama and Suez Canals, and the straights of Hormuz and Malacca. None of this was news to me, I just nodded in agreement for about four hundred pages.

I also read a stack of plays for young audiences by Dennis Foon, Dennis S. Craig, and Eleanor Albanese. I thought Dennis Foon's New Canadian Kid was brilliant in its use of gibberish for what is being spoken around the immigrant child. That's the play that stands out the most for me. However, Albanese's Body Image Project, Zak and the Magic Blue Stone, Signe's Lost Colours, and Power of One were also excellent -- unsentimental, treated of issues well, accessible language, interesting characters. Each had a different hook: the Body Image Project I think for all concerned parents and young women, Lost colours for the elderly friend, etc. I'm full of questions for her now!

I read Foon's War, which was not sentimental; Chasing the Money, a play about teen gambling -- I didn't even know teens gambled; Mirror Game, which showed me how to be more inventive with stagecraft; Am I the only one? which I thought was a little trite (easy for me to say); and his screenplay Little Criminals, the first screen play I've ever read, although I did read books on how to write screenplays;

I also read John Lazarus' Chester, You Owe my Bird an Apology. I found it a bit sentimental, but it's possible it's intended for a younger audience that the other plays. The same is true for Foon's The Short Tree and the Bird That Could Not Sing. I also read Lazarus' Babel Rap.

The effect was what I had hoped: I now am full of ideas about plays for young people!!!

Blackburn, Thornton, Hibbert, Wise

I am presently reading a memoir, The Three of Us, by Julia Blackburn, and it is a great read. It is written without sentimentality or self-pity, with an evocative sense of place and time. I really like it. I also read Sarah Thornton's Seven Days in the Art World. It covered a Christie's auction, a critique session at a big art school, the Venice Biennale, and so on. First of all, I thought it was non-fiction, but the author put phone conversations as if she were present at certain events. At least she tells us that she does so in the conclusion, but now I don't know if she was there or not. Not much content surprised me, it was about SOCIETY artists, in a way. I also thought the author's blurb, which I now know is written by the authors themselves, went overboard: "Britain's hippest academic?" This book wasn't written by an academic, there is not enough hard fact in it. Then I read Hibbert's Borgias and Their Enemies, which disappointed me as being a little lightweight. I have read other books by Hibbert, and I quite like him generally. Finally, I read Wise's Blackest Streets, about the Nicol slum in London in the nineteenth century. It was interesting for what it revealed. What stands out for me was not the desolate conditions, about which I had read in more detail elsewhere. It was that from time to time someone who was born to a better class was now reduced to living there. I always wondered what happened to people who lost their job, got sick, or drank all their money. I had read Wharton's House of Mirth, but this was about real people.

I also read an issue of The New Yorker.

Voltaire, Mags

Since my last post, I have finished reading the complete works of Voltaire. I decided to read his philosophical dictionary, after hesitating a bit, and I'm glad I did. He uses various terms to discuss all sorts of issues, and he is very witty. For example, he talks about Pope Innocent III's permission to husbands whose wives are too sick to have intercourse to take another woman. He asks why this isn't engraved on the hearts of all husbands! His wit reminded me of Oscar Wilde's. On the other hand, I had no idea this great philosopher was so scattered in his writing and his thinking. I was rather surprised, I thought he would have been very systematic... So now I'm plowing through my Christmas gifts, four books by Alison Weir. Right now I'm reading Eleanor of Aquitaine. I also read two issues of Eclectic Reading, a New Yorker, a New Scientist, an Economist, an OK, and a Vanity Fair. I also finally finished reading The World in 2009, with all the Economist's predictions.

Since my last post, I've read an issue of The New Scientist. I've also read Julian Fellowes' Snobs, Yasheng Huang's Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, Paul Claude's complete plays, Geoff Nicholson's Lost Art of Walking, and the medieval Japanese tale Taiheiki. As much as I enjoyed Fellowes' Gosford Park, as little I enjoyed his novel. It was one dimensional, and all the characters were flat. Huang's essay was outstanding: nuanced views of China are rare, and he had lots of relevant specifics to back up his arguments. I found his argument persuasive, in particular because it recognized certain problems in official information but marshaled them well. Nicholson's essay was light, well-written, witty, but thin. Taiheiki put me in mind of all those samurai shows and films from Japan, and it also made me think of Clavell's Shogun. I reserve my last remarks for Claudel. His plays show an astonishing range, from the unplayable and obviously Greek-influenced early plays -- he read Greek well enough to translate Aeschylus -- to certain hints anticipating Beckett. I'll have to read another biography of Beckett to see if he read Claudel. He also wrote scenarios for ballet, and radio plays. Although there is certainly plenty of religious content, his most famous plays were less overtly religious than I thought. Some of the early Greek-influenced plays were actually performed in the 1940s. I was astounded.