I will admit that this snippet does not look promising -- at least, it looks sort of politically heavy-handed. On the other (lighter?) hand, one of the greatest exchanges of dialogue from "Skylight" (an earlier Hare play)was about a portable heater -- and the protagonists were an older man and a younger woman, very like these two, and he was telling her it was ridiculous that she didn't own a space heater and there's no way it was helping the poor not to buy a cheap space heater from Marks & Sparks (or someplace like that).
If you'd just read that snippet, you'd think the play was ridiculous, but if you were actually in the theatre, you'd realize just how brilliant it was, a high point in a fine play.
Well, I just hope that in "Vertical Hour" there will be more of the Sex Pistols and less of the Death Squads and I guess I'll find out in 48 hours.
We await your report, Susan. (In all fairness, even based on the snippet, I can see the potential for a lot of genuine irony. Of course that will require Hare to be a playwright first and foremost. It is one of Ibsen's greatest qualities that he portrays his protagonists - Dr. Stockman, for instance - in a way that gives glimpses, and more than glimpses, of their pettiness, self-centeredness, dogmatism, etc.)
I will admit that this snippet does not look promising -- at least, it looks sort of politically heavy-handed. On the other (lighter?) hand, one of the greatest exchanges of dialogue from "Skylight" (an earlier Hare play)was about a portable heater -- and the protagonists were an older man and a younger woman, very like these two, and he was telling her it was ridiculous that she didn't own a space heater and there's no way it was helping the poor not to buy a cheap space heater from Marks & Sparks (or someplace like that).
ReplyDeleteIf you'd just read that snippet, you'd think the play was ridiculous, but if you were actually in the theatre, you'd realize just how brilliant it was, a high point in a fine play.
Well, I just hope that in "Vertical Hour" there will be more of the Sex Pistols and less of the Death Squads and I guess I'll find out in 48 hours.
We await your report, Susan. (In all fairness, even based on the snippet, I can see the potential for a lot of genuine irony. Of course that will require Hare to be a playwright first and foremost. It is one of Ibsen's greatest qualities that he portrays his protagonists - Dr. Stockman, for instance - in a way that gives glimpses, and more than glimpses, of their pettiness, self-centeredness, dogmatism, etc.)
ReplyDelete