zutopia

smoking parlour 04.08.07

so i went to see a play last night.. it was shakespeare's "cymbalene".. bout a king in pre-christian Britain-- but more about his daughter, imogene's virtue.. yaddi yaddi yadda.. imogene's in love with her half-brother, but she's been promised to marry her step-brother (i know the Royals are crazy), so half-brother is banished to rome.. half-brother however bets italian-stallion homeboy that his love imogene can't be tempted and is most virtuous.. he right.. she true blue.. but italian homeboy sneaks into her boudoir sneaks a peak at the mole on her breast, takes a bangle off her arm and returns to rome with proof enough that she's been tainted. the half-brother orders her killed for this and insanity ensues.. thanks shakespeare for helping to propagate this shit.. the murderer actually fakes imogene's death but in the end, imogene forgives her half-brother for attempting to kill her and all is forgiven.. yaddi yaddi yadda... yah. it was actually well done.. it was a british company and in english so i enjoyed it and the NT theatre here was quite beautiful.. they even had a smoking parlour with a chandelier, mouldings, and cool contemporary portraits on the walls.. i got one flick of the adjoining room, then my camera battery died.




pretty, huh.. this was just one of the lounges. it was a huge theatre..

but.. if i were in the ny right now i'd probably check out "Grey Gardens," now playing on Broadway! the Times critic heralds it as a narrative of failure breaking from the traditional narrative of American success. she calls it a new mood in America praising failure, ala Jennifer Hudson, the Office etc. etc. Not sure how "new" it is, America's failures have always paralleled it's successes, the underdog remains the favorite (no? well at least for me), even in popular culture... the blues, black people:), grunge, and quite literally beck with his ironically chart topping, "i'm a Loser baby.." yeah.. well.. in any case, i've had my share of bumps in the road- some would call them train wrecks, or failures.. but "failure" like beauty remains in the eye of the beholder... well, toodle loo and here's a snippet of the "greys gardens" review:

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/theater/08ishe.html?th&emc=th

"...Imagining a back story of family strife and disappointment for both the junior and senior Edies, they remind us that life's knocks have a way of warping all of us — even the most privileged — into slight (or sometimes extreme) caricatures of ourselves. In the second act, when the Beales have been transformed into a pair of living ghosts haunting a decaying mansion, the songs they sing open windows into their hearts, softening their gargoylishness.

As absurd as they appear the Beales are comfortingly human too. Their decline from hopeful dreamers to withdrawn oddballs may be extreme, but it traces in unusually gothic style an arc that shapes many a human journey. The lives we live as adults are rarely in neat accord with the heady dreams of youth. The seismic change that occurs in the fortunes of the Beales while the audience is chatting away merrily at intermission is a sneaky metaphor for the stealthy progress of fate in our own lives.

Few will leave the theater thinking: Little Edie Beale, c'est moi! But everyone of a certain age (say 30) has probably lived through a few of those startling moments when you take stock of your life as it is and wonder: How did I get here, exactly? When did the curves come that moved me away from one destiny and toward another? I guess it all must have happened during intermission."

(while i was in the smoking parlour;-) if you check it, lemme know what you think. peace, zu

oh, some recent flicks..

me and radna at sandrijn's bday
me and lenn at alex's bday me and jason when he played rotterdam easter lunch at the davis' the davis' sunday drive sandrijn striking a pose

posted by z.a.k. @ 7:27 AM