Zorro was really good. Good like an excellent cheese burger, really hot, really fresh, not perhaps all that nutritious, but oh so delicious. They really wrote/played it for laughs, but also as a real swashbuckler. The lead was remarkable, not the typical casting, very slight and elegant which was good for Don Diego, but he managed to be so adept with the sword and with movement generaly that he came across as super hero-like as Z. And this was hands down the best fight choreography I have ever seen. Which is something because the theatre only holds about 65 seats and I was in the second row.
Downside to this production: I liked it because of the superhero component. My serious theater friends were not impressed. They found it amateurish. While I think that is a bit harsh, I suspect the treatement more than the production itself lends credence to this criticism.
I was trying to think of why I thought the adaptation was so strong and I think it was because it captured a longing for passion. Passion of romance, passion to do things in aid of justice, passion for life. Again pointing to black and white, heroes, man and superman. In a world of money grubbing and daily compromise, wouldn't it be nice to be a hero?
In some ways it was an opposite treatment from Around the World in 80 Days. That show also captured my heart. 80 Days is about curiosity, says the adaptor/director. And I think she has a point. Fogg is so stuck in his life and so attached to his routine. And then he takes off on a trip around the world with only the thought to make the finish line. And yet he unthaws in the process, not so much because of what he (doesn't truly) see(s), but because of the people who join him and the awakening in him that lets in love for a woman.
Does Fogg become a hero? Perhaps not truly, but he awakens to his own heroic potential in the style of Joseph Campbell. Live your life as heroically as possible for optimum fulfillment.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
To Be or Not To Be
In a comment involving an earlier post in this blog, I mentioned the word "being." Someone picked up on the term and suggested that I do a post on the subject. So here are a few angles on the word, culled from a variety of sources as best I remember them. As you can imagine it's a tough topic, and my mental pebbles are just a few from off a vast beach of them. I am setting these stones specifically inside a human context or frame. And I would be most interested in knowing whether any of the following stuff has resonance today.
To begin with, "being" is one of those words with a long history of controversy. Said differently, it's a word ancient in origin, linked to a variety of world religions and spiritualities, unable to be scientifically validated, mostly dropped from the late modern lexicon (especially in the West), and very difficult to use in a postmodern world--or so it is often thought.
So what's the word basically about--what's the reality and/or realities the word seeks to identify? Here are a few takes for reflection: the foundation brick of human existence; the nucleus of human personhood and identity; the residence of the human spirit; the rudimentary "soul" of personality; the launchpad for integrative activity; home to the mind/the will/and the affections; the anchor for what used to be called human nature; the seat of universal existential life--thereby offering common ground and a level playing field for uniting persons and and communities/cultures.
While the preceding offers interesting material to think about, "being" seems to have lost credence as a philosophical subject. However, I continue to think the word fingers something foundational, dynamic, and universal. An idea /reality still worth exploring. Now for a couple of footnotes.
If "being" is a living/breathing reality and not just a name on a page, then it seems to me that this reality oozes with implications. This includes implications for the world of art and as well as for a global world that shows itself deeply divided. Second, the whole subject prompts for me the question whether human beings are smart gorillas, or a species of life that has evolved into its own unique and/or special category/taxonomy.
Back to beginnings. "To be or not to be." What sorts of things might Shakespeare have had in mind? And Hamlet?
That's it for now folks.
To begin with, "being" is one of those words with a long history of controversy. Said differently, it's a word ancient in origin, linked to a variety of world religions and spiritualities, unable to be scientifically validated, mostly dropped from the late modern lexicon (especially in the West), and very difficult to use in a postmodern world--or so it is often thought.
So what's the word basically about--what's the reality and/or realities the word seeks to identify? Here are a few takes for reflection: the foundation brick of human existence; the nucleus of human personhood and identity; the residence of the human spirit; the rudimentary "soul" of personality; the launchpad for integrative activity; home to the mind/the will/and the affections; the anchor for what used to be called human nature; the seat of universal existential life--thereby offering common ground and a level playing field for uniting persons and and communities/cultures.
While the preceding offers interesting material to think about, "being" seems to have lost credence as a philosophical subject. However, I continue to think the word fingers something foundational, dynamic, and universal. An idea /reality still worth exploring. Now for a couple of footnotes.
If "being" is a living/breathing reality and not just a name on a page, then it seems to me that this reality oozes with implications. This includes implications for the world of art and as well as for a global world that shows itself deeply divided. Second, the whole subject prompts for me the question whether human beings are smart gorillas, or a species of life that has evolved into its own unique and/or special category/taxonomy.
Back to beginnings. "To be or not to be." What sorts of things might Shakespeare have had in mind? And Hamlet?
That's it for now folks.
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