22 Thursday Jun 2017
Posted in Lostintranslation, Theatre
I have, o Readers, a riddle for you: How is maize like an Ottoman Sultan?
Let me tell you a story. Do you remember Ugo Foscolo and his Salamini/Little Sausages? Do you remember as both I and my friend Dave in the comments wondered how on earth could he have made such a tragedy-killing blunder?
Well, it may be that I know just how… Continue reading
15 Thursday Jun 2017
Now, gentlemen, betake you to your arms,
And see that Malta be well fortified;
And it behoves you to be resolute;
For Calymath, having hover’d here so long,
Will win the town, or die before the walls.FIRST KNIGHT. And die he shall; for we will never yield.
08 Thursday Jun 2017
Tags
christopher marlowe, Doomed characters, Hanno Buddenbrook, Johnny Nolan, Konradin von Hohenfels, names
I remember once shopping for Sicilian wine, and choosing a bottle of Grecale for no better reason than the beautiful name. If I were being written, I thought, this wouldn’t bode well for my life expectancy… Continue reading
01 Thursday Jun 2017
So, Tamburlaine the Great, part II. Part I had been such a smashing success, and suddenly conquerors were all the rage in London playhouses, and one can easily imagine the Admiral’s Men pestering Kit Marlowe about a sequel… Continue reading
25 Thursday May 2017
Posted in Things
And so, my friend Dave over at Karavansara nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award… In truth, he did some ten days ago – but back then I was swimming in chaos, what with Shakespeare in Words approaching fast, and two talks, and everything else. So I asked leave to give a delayed response: and here we are.
Thank you very much, Davide – for the award itself, and for the patience… Continue reading
18 Thursday May 2017
Posted in Theatre
Caesar’s cloak is missing.
Not that it’s a real cloak, either – just a large square of thick, dark red fabric. In Shakespeare in Words it does double duty: it is the cloak – the one we all know, the one Caesar first put on one summer evening in his tent – and also stands for the body. And it’s perfectly sized, and doesn’t reflect light, and always falls in good-looking folds… And it is missing. Continue reading
13 Saturday May 2017
Tags
"No You're Crying" Blogathon, Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand, Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Moon in Gemini
This post is my entry for the “No, You’re Crying” Blogathon, an event hosted by Moon in Gemini – about our favourite tearjerker films…
What is it that makes us cry, at the movies or elsewhere? Whenever the question crops up, I’m reminded of Uncle Vernon in An Awfully Big Adventure, explaining how the lowest notes of the male voice automatically trigger his lachrymal sacs… Continue reading
11 Thursday May 2017
Posted in Things
Tags
I’m back, I’m back… It’s been a long two computer-less, off-line weeks and a half… Everything happened, computer-wise and otherwise.
Talks to prepare, the new readings of Il Palcoscenico di Carta/The Paper Stage, frantic rehearsals for Shakespeare in Words, and whatnot. Surprisingly, I even managed to squeeze in some writing… Or perhaps not so very surprisingly, after all. It goes with being offline. Continue reading
20 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in Books
I’d never read anything by William Palmer – unti I got to review his novel The Devil Is White for the Historical Novel Review, some time ago.
And it was a surprise.
The story begins in 1792 England, with a bunch of entusiasts bent on founding their own colonial utopia on an island off the Western coast of Africa – a free, slaveless and democratic utopia, based on hard work, merit and honest interaction with the coastal tribes.
True, the coastal tribes happily thrive on the slave trade – but only for lack of proper morals, a state of things the settlers’ good example and conversion to Christianism are bound to change… Continue reading
16 Sunday Apr 2017
