Harmless babble
Apr. 26th, 2004 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootThe weekend brought a considerable improvement on the maudlin mood of Friday. Larians hit on the perfect way to cheer me up, and took me to Macclesfield, to watch the local Am-drammers' production of Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
I had misgivings because the only MADS production I've seen before was 'Dracula,' a total disaster. I have now seen two entirely separate productions of this play, both of which were happily appalling. I felt privileged to watch Jonathan Harker's tophat stapled to Lucy's chest in a frantic mis-staking, and I recall watching awe struck as, on Drac's line: 'Keeel meee den! Ay peetee yoooo, vid your long sheeps' faces!' The vampire hunters promptly acquiesced by kicking his head in.
Enough of past delights.
LLD is bloody hard to produce with satisfaction, because the definitive Valmont and Merteuil have been provided by Malkovitch and Close. It leaves directors and actors in a situation where they are inevitably going to be compared to something extraordinary, and the decision is hard: Do you play it safe and facsim the film, or do you go your own way and risk the displeasure of the audience who know what they like?
The director compromised, and gave us a faithful rendition of the film all until the last minute, where Merteuil's debacle was substituted for a card game speech about waiting for the future, and continuing to play the game. At the end, the backlit shade of madame guillotine fell with perfect timing, and it was then one recalled the growing distaste of the servants at their masters' doings. I don't know if this was the novel's original ending, but it was an interesting twist.
The rest of the weekend was spent being constructive and doing boring but very necessary admin, sorting out, of all things, my bloody filing cabinet.
Fingerlickin' Fred jauntilly leapt out of the gerbilarium when I was changing the water, fell through the air the full length of the cabinet, and landed on the carpet, looking a bit startled. Forget what people tell you about gerbils and their addiction to tubes. It's bollocks. Fred wisely recognised it as a ruse and wouldn't go near it. He took a lot of coaxing, but eventually Larians caught him gently and put him back and he promptly spent the rest of the night stuffing his face (the gerbil, that is, not Larians.) We then got to see something so sweet!
I haven't seen the baby gerbils since the day they were born, and my fear was that Freakella had eaten them. In fact, they are all alive and well (as far as we could tell - we never were sure if there were seven, eight or nine) and moving around tentatively in Freakella's huge underground complex. Baby gerbils can run before they can see. Their eyes are still shut but they have fur and no longer resemble purple penises. One is sand coloured, at least two are white, one is a deep grey and one is black...the others were shuffling around inside and I couldn't see them very clearly.
They are totally adorable. I do not want to get rid of them. What we need is another fishtank, and then to just divvy up the communities by sex, and they will all live happily ever after. Ahhh!
And with that, I must stop babbling on and get to work.
I had misgivings because the only MADS production I've seen before was 'Dracula,' a total disaster. I have now seen two entirely separate productions of this play, both of which were happily appalling. I felt privileged to watch Jonathan Harker's tophat stapled to Lucy's chest in a frantic mis-staking, and I recall watching awe struck as, on Drac's line: 'Keeel meee den! Ay peetee yoooo, vid your long sheeps' faces!' The vampire hunters promptly acquiesced by kicking his head in.
Enough of past delights.
LLD is bloody hard to produce with satisfaction, because the definitive Valmont and Merteuil have been provided by Malkovitch and Close. It leaves directors and actors in a situation where they are inevitably going to be compared to something extraordinary, and the decision is hard: Do you play it safe and facsim the film, or do you go your own way and risk the displeasure of the audience who know what they like?
The director compromised, and gave us a faithful rendition of the film all until the last minute, where Merteuil's debacle was substituted for a card game speech about waiting for the future, and continuing to play the game. At the end, the backlit shade of madame guillotine fell with perfect timing, and it was then one recalled the growing distaste of the servants at their masters' doings. I don't know if this was the novel's original ending, but it was an interesting twist.
The rest of the weekend was spent being constructive and doing boring but very necessary admin, sorting out, of all things, my bloody filing cabinet.
Fingerlickin' Fred jauntilly leapt out of the gerbilarium when I was changing the water, fell through the air the full length of the cabinet, and landed on the carpet, looking a bit startled. Forget what people tell you about gerbils and their addiction to tubes. It's bollocks. Fred wisely recognised it as a ruse and wouldn't go near it. He took a lot of coaxing, but eventually Larians caught him gently and put him back and he promptly spent the rest of the night stuffing his face (the gerbil, that is, not Larians.) We then got to see something so sweet!
I haven't seen the baby gerbils since the day they were born, and my fear was that Freakella had eaten them. In fact, they are all alive and well (as far as we could tell - we never were sure if there were seven, eight or nine) and moving around tentatively in Freakella's huge underground complex. Baby gerbils can run before they can see. Their eyes are still shut but they have fur and no longer resemble purple penises. One is sand coloured, at least two are white, one is a deep grey and one is black...the others were shuffling around inside and I couldn't see them very clearly.
They are totally adorable. I do not want to get rid of them. What we need is another fishtank, and then to just divvy up the communities by sex, and they will all live happily ever after. Ahhh!
And with that, I must stop babbling on and get to work.
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My thoughts on it...
Date: 2004-04-26 05:29 am (UTC)Pah...(assuming you refer to the film and not a stage production I dont know about, in which case you could well be right) (IMHO)I dont agree in the slightest I thought Closes performance in particular was overly sentementalised and made the character one dimensional and uncomplicated... Malcovich was good though but he was just playing Malcovich (not that there anything wrong with that), which worked for that production because it had practically been directed to complement the characterisations of those particular actors ratherthan the actors producing a performance to complement the direction. However it is still a stonkingly good production, I just personally dont believe it was definitive... but in one sense it has been I suppose because most people have never (and will never see anything else) .... and then of course theres the issue of whether you can really compare a staged production with one of film.... burble burble burble... oh dear what does definitive really mean? eeeekkk... Ive confoozed myself now.
However it is true to say that many audiences are unduly influenced by individual performences particularly if the medium is film rather than stage. Compare and contract the number of actresses who have recieved Death threats for misprounouncing the "handbag" line in importance of being ernest... thats all off a certain persons superbly ham " a Haaaaaa(geting higher)nnndbag!" which is of course what we all expect now....
Re: My thoughts on it...
Date: 2004-04-26 10:57 am (UTC)Having seen Malkovitch in almost nothing else (there was some terrible musketeers thing with Sproutface Dicaprio, but I try to forget it) I've no way of knowing Malkovitch's talent beyond his reputation. I don't know if he fitted Valmont or Valmont was tailored to fit him, but one way or another, as you say, it was a stonking performance. A stage Valmont and a screen Valmont aren't necessarily the same creature, but I think they will always be compared to Malkovitch's depiction.
Merteuil's more difficult, cos she's open to re-interpretation every time, which is great for the actress who wants to make her mark, but guarantees she'll never please everybody.
Who does she love more, her power or Valmont? Close seems to go with the eventual revelation of the latter ('When a woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses'). It gives the audience a feelgood ending plus cautionary tale: The Fall of the Bitchqueen, or Reasons Why Nice Girls Win - even if in real life, they seldom do.
The MADS rendition was slightly different: Apart from one sob she couldn't conceal, Merteuil coolly carried on playing cards. It was a very interesting change, and I wish the director had been as bold with the rest of it. Valmont by contrast, was a mini-malk in breeches too big for him and his biggest brother. Painful is what it was...