21 June - Arcadia & Theatre

Went to see Arcadia. Fizzy script, great acting, all very clever, lots of cultural references and so on. Enjoyed it but even at the time was thinking, 'I won't remember much of this in six months'. In fact was convinced had already seen it but since last time it played Rufus Sewell was in the cast and I would remember seeing him, well I hadn't.

So was thinking about how most entertainment is truly just for the moment. It doesn't change your life, and how little is 'left over’ after the experience. Is art just entertainment in the here and now? After all, does thinking about your favourite Caravaggio painting help you if you’re hassled or depressed or sacked or bereaved? Methinks not. Yes, art may put things in perspective, and give some solace, but so would someone else’s experience. I mean, if xxx happens to you, good or bad, do you go back to thinking about the situation in a play or movie or novel that helps you deal with it? In fact I don't think I've ever stood there thinking about something that happened to me that it was just like the plot in an Antonioni movie or a section of dialogue in a novel I read. It doesn’t have to be contained in that medium, it's more likely that I will remember a story told by a friend and about events that had happened to ‘real’ people. Funny that, since most plots are taken from real life and jumbled up a bit.
Maybe only music escapes this. But a photograph? No. My mind when idle does not go back to the memory of a photo or of a play unless am thinking about who was with me when I saw the play or photo. And it's all incidental unless it was directly after the play that I took such and such a decision. In fact I can think of only one example: after coming out of the first time I saw 'Three Colurs Blue' by K., I left the married lover.

Later on I was saying just these thoughts to the women at the bookclub and it seems I'm in a minority of one. They all seem to remember vividly books they read, plays they saw and one in particular was waxing lyrical about about what an out of world experience she had when she saw Delaguarda (acrobatics/dance) at the Roundhouse a few years back. I said I was there too (not with her) and now that she jogged my memory, it had been an incredibly 'new' show, but to go from that to making it a defining art moment.. I'd say no. Another had just been to see 'Hamlet' with Jude Law and thought the plot was really relevant to her or more relevant now she's 50 than it was when she saw it last 20 years ago. I had to confess I saw it at least once, with Ralph Fiennes or was that Daniel Day or did that get cancelled and have no desire to see it again and on top of that have real trouble recalling the plot. There's a mad girl Ophelia, there's the ghost of the dead father. There's a mother and possible incest? But ... beyond that.... Though I sort of recognise the classics when they get borrowed for modern films/books.

Any comments?