15 June - Kabuki and TKAMB
Against my better judgement I get collared into accepting to go with a Japanese colleague to see a Kabuki superstar visiting Sadler's Wells with one of their most popular shows about a Yoshitune character. This is partly because of my 'do everyting at least once' tenet. And despite seeing kabuki on TV I think and finding it excruciatingly boring, I don't remember seeing it live, so I have to go when asked. Plus I like Y. so that part won't be boring. She's older than me by a decade I think and still seems to be fitter than me in our gym classes.
Despite the running commentary on the useful gizmo and having read up on it, am suprised at the simplicity of what we're asking to watch (sort of a parable, you know the fox and the grapes) and though I understand these things were first performed 900 years ago, I think Chaucer was a bit more advanced and nobody in their right mind would go see Chaucer's anything performed now.
I know the japanese have an incredible patience for ceremony and seem to like it when things take forever to take place but... anyway, the play /tableaux gets more interesting during the second part though am still wishing I was watching Italy do very badly against the whatever team they had that night at 20.30. At the underground station we run into another Japanese colleague who had also attended and reveals she cried at the end (moral was about being grateful to your parents for having given you life so am sure resonates with many ungrateful grown ups). I think 'You cried at that??' Bonkers.
Cut to me following morning on the tube readint To Kill a Mockingbird, which for some reason I had missed out during those scool years when you read this book and had also missed out ever seeing the movie. Yessum. I got to page 169 of my edition when little Scout single handedly stops the lynching mob by reminding one of the would be attackers that he has a kid at home much as Atticus has Scout who is in fact at school with said kid. Exit lynch mob.
Clearly, written in 1960 , set in 1935 blah blah, skilled writer who knows which strings she's pulling but similar simple message, walk in someone else's shoes for a while, we're all the same underneath conventions etc etc.
Wonder if Japanese colleague could cry at this. Wonder if the fact that cultural exchanges at least in Europe seem to have the West conceptions as dominating, means that 'they' get our culture more than we can possibly get 'theirs'?
Discuss
Despite the running commentary on the useful gizmo and having read up on it, am suprised at the simplicity of what we're asking to watch (sort of a parable, you know the fox and the grapes) and though I understand these things were first performed 900 years ago, I think Chaucer was a bit more advanced and nobody in their right mind would go see Chaucer's anything performed now.
I know the japanese have an incredible patience for ceremony and seem to like it when things take forever to take place but... anyway, the play /tableaux gets more interesting during the second part though am still wishing I was watching Italy do very badly against the whatever team they had that night at 20.30. At the underground station we run into another Japanese colleague who had also attended and reveals she cried at the end (moral was about being grateful to your parents for having given you life so am sure resonates with many ungrateful grown ups). I think 'You cried at that??' Bonkers.
Cut to me following morning on the tube readint To Kill a Mockingbird, which for some reason I had missed out during those scool years when you read this book and had also missed out ever seeing the movie. Yessum. I got to page 169 of my edition when little Scout single handedly stops the lynching mob by reminding one of the would be attackers that he has a kid at home much as Atticus has Scout who is in fact at school with said kid. Exit lynch mob.
Clearly, written in 1960 , set in 1935 blah blah, skilled writer who knows which strings she's pulling but similar simple message, walk in someone else's shoes for a while, we're all the same underneath conventions etc etc.
Wonder if Japanese colleague could cry at this. Wonder if the fact that cultural exchanges at least in Europe seem to have the West conceptions as dominating, means that 'they' get our culture more than we can possibly get 'theirs'?
Discuss
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 2:32 AM
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