Much Ado and A Curious Incident

Two old friends.

A visit to London means a visit to a London theatre - or two. Here's a couple of real contrasts:

Much Ado About Nothing

'Much Ado About Nothing' - Shakespeare at the Old Vic, with Beatrice played by Vanessa Redgrave and Benedick by James Earl-Jones; Mark Rylance directing. With those kind of names, how could you go wrong? But permit me a little whinge here about the self-indulgence of famous directors. I've been irritated a couple of times by some very obscure plays thrust upon unsuspecting audiences by Benedict Andrews, saved (and sometimes even not saved) by the inclusion of Cate Blanchett. "Oh, Ive always been enthralled by this peculiar and obscure foreign drama since I had to study it in drama college..." - OK, but leave us out of it, please.

In the case of Mr Rylance, for whom I have the very greatest respect, and the two extraordinary performers he cast as his 'young lovers'...well, it didn't really work all that well. It worked, because they all are who they are, but just not that well. Try something else next time.

Apart from the elderly character of the lovers, there were the American accents. Shakespeare's 'Much Ado' was transported to England in 1944, a change I think worked. But one reason for this choice (according to the program) was so that Mr Earl-Jones, and others, did not need to alter their usual speaking accent. Perhaps I'm the only one who'll say it, but Shakespeare doesn't translate easily to delivery in an American accent. One's ear has to make enough of an adjustment to old English - old English with a drawl is even harder. I snoozed through much of the first half.

I'm pleased to report, however, that the second half had me far more engaged, principally due to the brilliant duo; and also because the story is so annoyingly sexist (that father should be shot for believing the worst of his daughter so easily...) But I digress... Perhaps I'm making much ado about, er, nothing.

But wait...here's a reviewer who was also unimpressed:

This production came about when Mark Rylance saw Vanessa Redgrave and the great American actor James Earl Jones starring together in Driving Miss Daisy in the West End.
Rylance went backstage to congratulate them and, never a slouch when it comes to oddball ideas, suggested that they should play Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado. Redgrave jumped at the chance so long as Rylance directed and now here are all three of them together at the Old Vic.
There are moments, quite a few actually, when one wishes that Rylance had kept his big mouth shut. Beatrice and Benedick may be past the first flush of youth, but I don’t think anyone until now has thought of them as old age pensioners.

Ah yes, 'Driving Miss Daisy' was a much better casting decision.

Mathematical curiosities.

A Curious Incident

Across town, at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue, is the long-running National Theatre production of, of all things, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" - not a book you'd think would be easily translated to the stage. Mark Haddon's book about an autistic boy (or at least one at the Asbergers end of the spectrum) has been rather brilliantly adapted by Simon Stephens.

The pivotal and demanding role of Christopher Boone was performed by the young actor Mike Noble when I attended, and -- well, wow! The rest of the cast were very able: his teacher Siobhan - Rakie Ayola; his father Ed - Trevor Fox. his mother Judy - Amanda Drew; and a busy ensemble playing everyone else. Plus a live rat playing 'Toby.'

The set is a cube covered in a an mathematical grid which cleverly acts as everything from a blackboard to a train track. The whole thing melds so beautifully that you're never left wondering what's going on. The story, of course, is brilliantly told from Christopher's point of view in Haddon's book, and that sense also comes across in the play. A 'must see.'

Here's a review (though of a different, earlier, cast).

The Georgians and Their Manners

Georgians at The British Library (source)

The British Library usually has great exhibitions, and this one is no exception: Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain (til March 2014). The occasion is said to be the 300th anniversary of the accession of King George I in 1714. George IV died in 1830. So a little over a century is covered. As the subtitle suggests, the Georgians years really were the years that made modern Britain - so much that flowered in that century is clearly evident today, or is an obvious precursor to modern-day life. The life of the middle-class, that is, for this is the century that made them. The poor are mentioned now and then; the great generals and statesmen hardly at all, the prostitutes (of which there were many) never. Even the four "Georges" are introduced only at the beginning of the exhibition. This is about the flowering of the British middle class, and all that has meant for the western world.

When George I was enticed over from Hanover to establish a new protestant constitutional monarchy (George never did learn to speak English), England was set on the road to the dominance that helped it establish one of the great empires. Success in continental wars, innovative manufacturing, improved transport systems -- the country was driven on by technological inventions and entrepreneurial drive.

A page from Thomas Chippendale’s first furniture catalogue of 1754. (source)

The emerging middle class proved to have the tastes of the middle class today. Design and fashion flourished, new entertainment arrived, a new consumerist culture emerged. The printing presses began turning out newspapers, magazines and marketing print en masse for the growing middle class of merchants and professionals. They had money, and they wanted new buildings, new parks. The middle classes formed about one third of the population of Britain by the end of the period. There were emerging concepts of taste and politeness as the middle classes emulated a small but powerful elite. They built and furnished their homes in the latest styles, shopped for luxury goods, socialised at balls and assemblies.

It's this time that I think we can 'blame' for the bizarre cult of politeness that infects the modern Briton even today. The middle class Georgians, in an effort keep up with the aristocracy, who probably couldn't give a toss about "manners", set out all kinds of rules of etiquette in widely read books. The Victorians continued the fad, and in the 21st century you can still find a kind of twisted version. 'Being polite' was elevated above being sensible, so that even today in Britain you may find yourself being berated, rudely, for being, er, rude. You've transgressed some esoteric Georgian rule of etiquette, perhaps. Walked too slowly? Bumped into someone? Looked them in the eye? Cue tirade.

This is Victorian, but you get the drift...

In Georgian times the cities were still rough places of dirt and noise and only gradually improved as
elegant new streets and squares were built. The time of George IV was the time of architect John Nash, responsible for The Regent's Park and it's glorious surrounding Georgian buildings (and for turning Buckingham Palace into a palace). Georgian taste ran to classical architecture, expansive lawns and exotically planted flowerbeds.

The population of Britain trebled to 24 million and the East India Company imported luxury goods like tea, coffee, and sugar. Shopping became a social activity (sound familiar?) The fashion industry was born. But on the dark side, many luxury goods depended on slavery for their production. The British anti-slavery movement emerged in the 1780s but was not abolished until 1807: a dark episode rarely discussed these days.

Georgian dancing at the Assembly Rooms. (source)

Sociability was central to middle class Georgian life. There was a huge increase in public entertainments. There were new theatres (dozens still around today), and Assembly Rooms for dancing and gambling. Pleasure gardens and masquerades were hugely popular.

Drawn from the copious vaults of the British Library, there is on display a number of wonderful written artefacts (also known as books). There are the small tomes on etiquette, music, or what to discuss over the tea-table. There are huge, gorgeous volumes with illustrations of wild flowers. There is a particularly poignant small leather attaché case filled with chits documenting a young beau's gambling debts, left behind when he had to flee to the Continent to escape his creditors.

Visit, and understand a little more about the curious creatures who are the British.

The floor of the final room of the exhibition is a giant map of Georgian London, with each individual street clearly visible.
(source)

Information from the brochure accompanying the exhibition.
Pictures from the British Library website, and this review.

Hemingway's House

I thought I'd post some more pictures of Hemingway's house in Key West, Florida, for the literary aficionados out there. A brief recap of Hemingway in Key West, and beyond:

Hemingway had it good in Key West. A boy from Oak Park, Illinois, he'd served and been wounded n WWI ("A Farewell To Arms"); lived his 'Paris years' with his first wife Hadley, making forays into Spain ("The Sun Also Rises", "For Whom The Bell Tolls"); dumped Hadley and married Pauline. From Key West he took big game hunting safaris in Africa ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro") and he kept a custom-built deep-sea fishing boat. He liked to go fishing in Cuba ("The Old Man and the Sea"). Yep, the Key West years were prosperous and the lovely old island-architecture house (with huge swimming pool) attests to that. You can visit 'Papa's' writing studio in the old stable.

In Key West you can also gawk at Sloppy Joe's Bar (the original site and the later site) where Hemingway drank (a lot), and where he met Martha Gelhorn, his third wife. He dumped Pauline and moved with Martha to Cuba. Pauline got the Key West house. (Martha was later dumped for fourth wife Mary; Cuba had its revolution and the Hemingways moved to Idaho, where Ernest eventually shot himself).

Here's Wiki on the author's life.

And in Oak Park, Illinois, a 'burb of Chicago, you can visit the Hemingway Home and Museum.

And here's the NYT report from 1961of Hemingway's death - reported as accidental, after treatment for hyper-tension and malaria. He had in fact been treated with electroshock therapy for depression or a bi-polar condition that ran in his family, and had shot himself, as did his father.

A curious personality. A readable, stark writer. Check out a few quotes here. I'll leave you with this one, probably written in the studio in Key West, to ponder, as you take a walk around the Hemingway House in Key West:

“Each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories

Key West: Chickens, Cats & Conch

Sauce with your conch fritters? Key West.

The southernmost of the Florida Keys - in fact, the southernmost point of the USA - is twice the size that it once was. It's a US naval base, and over the years the navy has reclaimed so much land that the key is now divided into Old Town (funky, quirky, interesting) and New Town (boring, full of service companies and cheap hotels). Still, the original Old Town has something about it -- President Harry Truman loved staying here (there's even a 'Little White House'), as did Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and other arty characters with a few secrets and a fondness for the sun.

Truman remembered. Key West

The chickens? In the Old Town they wander about unmolested (there's a law protecting them), the roosters occasionally crowing between the coconut vendors. They're remnants of Cuban cock-fighting birds, set free when the grim 'sport' was outlawed.

Why is that chicken crossing the road?

The cats? Well, over at the Hemingway place there are about 45 of them, all descended from 'Snowball', the household cat when Ernest Hemingway lived there with his second wife Pauline and their two sons. Snowball had six 'toes', and so do about half of his current descendants.

A six-toed cat resting on Hemingway's bed. Key West.

Hemingway had it good in Key West. A boy from Oak Park, Illinois, he'd served and been wounded n WWI ("A Farewell To Arms"); lived his 'Paris years' with his first wife Hadley, making forays into Spain ("The Sun Also Rises", "For Whom The Bell Tolls"); dumped Hadley and married Pauline. From Key West he took big game hunting safaris in Africa ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro") and he kept a custom-built deep-sea fishing boat. He liked to go fishing in Cuba ("The Old Man and the Sea"). Yep, the Key West years were prosperous and the lovely old island-architecture house (with huge swimming pool) attests to that. You can visit 'Papa's' writing studio in the old stable.

The Hemingway place, Key West.

Hemingway's writing studio., Key West Here, 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' was created.

You can also gawk at Sloppy Joe's Bar (the original site and the later site) where Hemingway drank (a lot), and where he met Martha Gelhorn, his third wife. He dumped Pauline and moved with Martha to Cuba. Pauline got the Key West house. (Martha was later dumped for fourth wife Mary; Cuba had its revolution and the Hemingways moved to Idaho, where Ernest eventually shot himself).

Sloppy Joe's on Duval Street, Key West.

But back to Key West, a quirky haven for writers and artists and 'alternative-lifestylers'. Poets.org says:

Long before the overseas highway connected it to the mainland and cruise ships made it a regular port of call, Key West was a tropical frontier town. Populated in the early twentieth century by an eclectic mix of fishermen, spongers, rum runners, and cigar makers, the tiny island was more Caribbean than American. Over 100 miles from mainland Florida and the southernmost point in the United States, Key West has attracted numerous artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, Wallace Stevens, Ralph Ellison, Elizabeth Bishop, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, and James Merrill, with its remote location, tropical setting, and wild spirit. 

Tennessee Williams first came to Key West at age thirty, in 1941. After living in a boarding house, he bought a clapboard Bahamian cottage on the outside of town, at 1431 Duncan Street, where he created a compound with a guest cottage, swimming pool, and one-room writing studio he called the "Mad House."

Pretty Key West architecture.

Bisque on the Beach. Key West.

More recently, Calvin Klein had a house in Key West, a lovely wooden confection in an octagonal shape, painted white and pale turquoise. Nearby is a house left by its owner to her cats, a bequest upheld by the courts. Key West lost many of its gay residents to the Aids epidemic, and has its own sombre Aids memorial. Its near the beaches on the Atlantic side of the island. I enjoyed a bowl of excellent seafood bisque on Higgs' Beach (memo to self: look up Clarence S. Higgs; he's probably a relative). The sea doesn't roll up in big surf here - there's a reef about five miles out. The sand is trucked in.

Calvin Klein's (ex) house, Key West.

This reef proved a source of prosperity for Key West in the past - claiming salvage from the shipwrecks was a major industry. Many of the fine old wooden mansions in the town are wreckers' houses. There was also a thriving pineapple industry until a blight wiped out the pineapples. Today tourism rules. Duval Street is full of chi-chi galleries and gay bars at one end, and noisy drinking holes and t-shirt shops at the other. Mallory Square shops will sell you a conch shell or a sea-sponge while you wait for the big cruise ships to get out of the way, so you can see the glorious sunset.

Pauline Hemingway's bedside lamp. Homage to the pineapple.

Conch fritters? Mojito?

On the Gulf side of the Key is the old seaport where the fishing boats, sailing boats, dinghies and runabouts moor, in front of crab shacks and mojito bars. At sunset, tradition has it that a conch shell is sounded - blown through a hole in one end to produce a low hoot which marks the going down of the sun on another day in paradise.

And Key Lime pie for afters?

The conch? It's everywhere, not just the shell, but also the fritters, Bahamian-style (Key West is just 90 miles north of Cuba, closer than it is to Miami). In the 1980s, after the US Government set up a customs post between Key West and the mainland of the USA (there was a bit of trouble with smuggling), the Key briefly declared itself a republic and 'seceded from the Union.' It became "The Conch Republic", with a flag and all. There was a psuedo-battle involving throwing stale bread at the Navy, a backdown by the rebels, a gracious removal of the customs post by the US government, and an excuse for another annual festival was born.

A local member of The Conch Republic.

Speaking of festivals, I was lucky to just miss Key West's 'Fantasy Festival' held around Hallowe'en. They had 75,000 visitors this year, principally because public nudity laws are relaxed for the duration and the main 'costumes' are merely body paint.

That's Key West.

Jimmy Buffett got his start singing in bars in Key West.

Only 90 mies to Cuba! The southernmost point of the USA.
"The Conch Republic."

Confetti

Confetti as you never knew it...

Where I come from, 'confetti' means small pieces of coloured paper or streamers that are thrown during a wedding or celebration. In Italy, it means almonds, or maybe chocolate or hazelnuts, coated in bright sugar confectionary, often done up into flowers or bouquets or other elaborate presentations -- compulsory at Italian weddings, and all other celebrations of any significance. My 'Rough Guide' guide book to Italy says:

Through ingenious marketing the Sulmonese confetti barons have made gifts of their intricate sculptures de rigeur at christenings, confirmations and weddings throughout Catholic Europe.

A 'confetti baron'! The phrase conjures quite a vision - a portly gent draped in confectionary? A smoke-filled room with senior businessmen clustered around a table full of...confetti?

Confetti barons...?

Sulmona's Roman aqueduct and the facade of San Francesco della Scarpa.

Garlic in the market in Piazza Garibaldi.

At the heart of it all is the small city of Sulmona, in Abrruzzo in Central Italy. Apart from confetti, which is everywhere in the town, Sulmona is also famous for being the birthplace of the Roman poet Ovid, and for being frequently destroyed by earthquakes, which are a serious threat throughout Abruzzo. It's only a few years (April 2009) since the main town of the province, L'Aquila, suffered a very serious quake.  Sulmona does still have a broad Piazza Garibaldi, where you can buy the local garlic (a speciality) on market days, and a quite well preserved Roman aqueduct. But if all that's left of the beautiful church of San Francesco della Scarpa, after earthquake damage, is a weighty portal, why not devote the town's attention to something lighter - and more profitable - like confetti?

Ovid contemplates his birthplace.

Ovid still looks down on it all, from a statue in a small piazza; and inside a palazzo now put to use as a museum (though usually closed) there's a terrific sculpture of Ovid masquerading as a Christian friar. From pagan love poetry to clutching the Bible. He lived from 43 BC to AD 17 or 18, and is considered one of the greatest writers of Latin love poetry; he was a great influence on later poets and writers. His famous 'Amores' tell in three books of poems of his grand affair with Corinna. Here's a sample of what you can find if you read ancient Latin - or find a translation:

...the opening poem [in Book 2] tells of Ovid's abandonment of a Gigantomachy in favour of elegy. 2 and 3 are entreaties to a guardian to let the poet see Corinna, poem 6 is a lament for Corinna's dead parrot, 7 and 8 deal with Ovid's affair with Corinna's servant and her discovery of it, and 11 and 12 try to prevent Corinna from going on vacation. 13 a prayer to Isis for Corinna's illness, 14 a poem against abortion, and 19 a warning to unwary husbands. (source)

I'm particularly drawn to the ode to a dead parrot (inspiration for Monty Python perhaps?) and will now need to seek out Ovid's poems in modern English. But meanwhile, I like to think that the small boy Ovid looked upon the same Roman aqueduct that still crosses Sulmona, and perhaps walked the same Corso Ovidio street that now bears his name. But I'm very sure that he never posed as a monk holding aloft a Christian Bible.

Ovid re-interpreted.

Having been led astray by consideration of Ovid, I should return to Sulmona's current claim to fame - the ubiquitous confetti. Claims as to the origin of the confetti recipe vary from "since Roman times" to 300 years ago. The confetti factories of Sulmona are still often family affairs, with the sweets being made in the traditional way, by hand in a four-day process. It's true that the sweets taste much better when you can eat them fresh in Sulmona, unlike packaged ones which may have spent some time in transportation or on the shelf -- the confetti of Sulmona is exported widely.

Dazzling confetti displays...

...trying to out-do each other.

As to why the English word 'confetti' came to mean paper rather than sweets, Wiki says:

The English word confetti (to denote Jordan almonds) is related to the Italian confectionery of the same name, which was a small sweet traditionally thrown during carnivals. Also known as dragée, Italian confetti are almonds with a hard sugar coating; their name can be translated from Italian to mean confit, as in confiture. The Italian word for paper confetti is coriandoli which refers to the coriander seeds originally contained within the sweet. By tradition, the Italian confetti (sugar coated almonds) are given out at weddings and baptisms (white coating), or graduations (red coating), often wrapped in a small tulle bag to give as a favour to the guests. For a wedding, they are said to represent the hope that the new couple will have a fertile marriage. The British adapted the missiles to weddings (displacing the traditional rice) at the end of the 19th century, using symbolic shreds of coloured paper rather than real sweets.

Di Carlo & Figlio carries on the tradition.

These days, thanks presumably to those 'confetti barons', confetti comes in wild and varied guises, and cellophane, ribbons, bows and wires are manipulated to produce fantastical concoctions of confetti.

Perhaps Ovid would have presented a bouquet to Corinna. To soothe her about the loss of her parrot.

A basket of confetti.

Confetti under the aqueduct.