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And all I have to do
Dec. 2nd, 2006 10:33 pmTonight we attended a striking student production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. Our main impetus was the fact that one of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares's students was performing in it (in a tutu), but it turned out to be some splendid Saturday night surrealism.
The branching narrative follows the dream-journey of a god's daughter, Agnes, who descends to earth to learn whether humans should be pitied. Her true self spends the entire play dreaming, motionless, atop a pillar, then stands at the end to symbolically shed the flesh by shedding her clothes. (How do you audition for a part like that?) While she sleeps, all manner of loves and angers and frustrations play out around her wandering spirit, as people trapped in the meat of corporeality repeat their mistakes, fail to communicate, experience joy only at the cost of suffering elsewhere, and generally make the point that bodily existence is pain. (adfamiliares pointed out how very Gnostic it all was.) But it was poignantly funny in some places (and just poignant in others), and the spectral chords of the women's chorus buoyed things back into the realm of spirituality when the realm of meat and beasts threatened to become too bleak. The staging was very 80s-David Byrne in places, which I am a sucker for: big blocks of color, slide projections, harsh lights from the wings. It was really a joy to watch.
(As always seems to happen when I go to the theater, my heart went pit-a-pat for one of the actors: a stunning redhead with hair twisted up into Medusa snakes, whose primary contribution was to crawl sinuously around the stage in a leotard and cry, "I'm pasting! I'm pasting!" Um. But in a very sexy way. Really! And she likes science fiction!)
adfamiliares's students was performing in it (in a tutu), but it turned out to be some splendid Saturday night surrealism.The branching narrative follows the dream-journey of a god's daughter, Agnes, who descends to earth to learn whether humans should be pitied. Her true self spends the entire play dreaming, motionless, atop a pillar, then stands at the end to symbolically shed the flesh by shedding her clothes. (How do you audition for a part like that?) While she sleeps, all manner of loves and angers and frustrations play out around her wandering spirit, as people trapped in the meat of corporeality repeat their mistakes, fail to communicate, experience joy only at the cost of suffering elsewhere, and generally make the point that bodily existence is pain. (
adfamiliares pointed out how very Gnostic it all was.) But it was poignantly funny in some places (and just poignant in others), and the spectral chords of the women's chorus buoyed things back into the realm of spirituality when the realm of meat and beasts threatened to become too bleak. The staging was very 80s-David Byrne in places, which I am a sucker for: big blocks of color, slide projections, harsh lights from the wings. It was really a joy to watch.(As always seems to happen when I go to the theater, my heart went pit-a-pat for one of the actors: a stunning redhead with hair twisted up into Medusa snakes, whose primary contribution was to crawl sinuously around the stage in a leotard and cry, "I'm pasting! I'm pasting!" Um. But in a very sexy way. Really! And she likes science fiction!)
