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wordwhackerThis came as a genuine surprise to me - I turned the page and... what? Finished? What's the opposite of "Alack and well-a-day", 'cause that's kind of how I feel. Seeing as how this is the week our paper for this class is due, I am ALL TOO HAPPY to have had only three acts to read in order to get there.
I had an urge to drag out my much neglected violin and play some of the airs that were printed along with this one, so I did. Sometimes the print is a little fuzzy so it's hard to make out, but it's pretty readable. They're all such cute little melodies. Some of them sound vaguely familiar, but it's hard to say for sure, I'm certain they would have been well known in the day.
That's something that I had a hard time with, for this play: the references to particular places, people, events, etc, got a little overwhelming at points. Though it had me wondering how fun it would be to re-write this play for a performance in Saint John, inserting our own notorious bars and seedy areas of town and all of that fun stuff.
And I'm sure the people who were relieved about Lovely and Fainwell's relationship in the last play will be deeply disturbed by this one. Not only is Macheath a lousy, two-timing boyfriend, he... wait, isn't "lousy, two-timing boyfriend" enough? He also gets out of his predicament by setting each of the girls up with someone else. (For the dance. Of course.) So I guess the moral of this play is "don't date Macheath".
So, okay, besides that, what IS the moral of this play? I'm sure the answer to this question has something to do with the number of times the words "slut", "hussy" and "jade" are used in this play. Wouldn't some of this have been considered foul language? How does this play fit into good ol' Collier's worried ranting about how the stage is set to corrupt young minds and that sort of thing? 'Cause, you know, after reading this play I definitely want to go out and live the criminal life. Yarrr.
(Not the pirate life, Cass, the criminal life.) Aww. Sad face.
For the record, I loved the "Beggar" and "Player" who open the act and who break the fourth wall before the final scene. And I got a kick out of this in particular:
There is something interesting about this, but I am too distracted by stressing out about the paper to process it at all. So I'll just hope the group presentation and class discussion on Thursday open things up on it a bit, and file it under "The Moral Of The Story" until then. (I also hope at least a few folks have time to read it, otherwise it's gonna be a pretty sparse discussion...)
Number of plays read: 10
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (So I wonder how much of a pet peeve "women in breeches" was for Collier?)
I had an urge to drag out my much neglected violin and play some of the airs that were printed along with this one, so I did. Sometimes the print is a little fuzzy so it's hard to make out, but it's pretty readable. They're all such cute little melodies. Some of them sound vaguely familiar, but it's hard to say for sure, I'm certain they would have been well known in the day.
That's something that I had a hard time with, for this play: the references to particular places, people, events, etc, got a little overwhelming at points. Though it had me wondering how fun it would be to re-write this play for a performance in Saint John, inserting our own notorious bars and seedy areas of town and all of that fun stuff.
And I'm sure the people who were relieved about Lovely and Fainwell's relationship in the last play will be deeply disturbed by this one. Not only is Macheath a lousy, two-timing boyfriend, he... wait, isn't "lousy, two-timing boyfriend" enough? He also gets out of his predicament by setting each of the girls up with someone else. (For the dance. Of course.) So I guess the moral of this play is "don't date Macheath".
So, okay, besides that, what IS the moral of this play? I'm sure the answer to this question has something to do with the number of times the words "slut", "hussy" and "jade" are used in this play. Wouldn't some of this have been considered foul language? How does this play fit into good ol' Collier's worried ranting about how the stage is set to corrupt young minds and that sort of thing? 'Cause, you know, after reading this play I definitely want to go out and live the criminal life. Yarrr.
(Not the pirate life, Cass, the criminal life.) Aww. Sad face.
For the record, I loved the "Beggar" and "Player" who open the act and who break the fourth wall before the final scene. And I got a kick out of this in particular:
BEGGAR
Through the whole piece you may observe such a
similitude of manners in high and low life that it
is difficult to determine whether (in the
fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen imitate the
gentlemen of the road, of the gentlemen of the
road the fine gentlemen. Had the play remained
as I first intended, it would have carried a most
excellent moral: 'twould have shown that the lower
sort of people have their vices in a degree as well
as the rich: And that they are punished for them. (III.xvii.19-28)
There is something interesting about this, but I am too distracted by stressing out about the paper to process it at all. So I'll just hope the group presentation and class discussion on Thursday open things up on it a bit, and file it under "The Moral Of The Story" until then. (I also hope at least a few folks have time to read it, otherwise it's gonna be a pretty sparse discussion...)
Number of plays read: 10
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (So I wonder how much of a pet peeve "women in breeches" was for Collier?)
