Christmas Eve… We can’t very well go without some Dickens now, can we?
So… What about the 1910 Edison silent version?
Happy Christmas Eve, o Readers!
Silent Scrooge
24 Sunday Dec 2017
Posted in Silents
Author Archives: la Clarina
Christmas Music ♫
23 Saturday Dec 2017
Posted in Things
What can I say? I love how old-fashioned and naïve it is… Around Christmas I wax sentimental this way.
Of Snowfalls and Playwrights
21 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Eccentricities
Here I am, dreaming of a White Christmas – and not likely to have one, it seems, except for the frost. And I’m not exactly pining, but I sigh, and mumble to myself, and hopefully study the skies, and this kind of things.
To which many of my friends shake their heads, and a few actually scold me: when shall I grow up? Don’t I know what a damn nuisance snow is? Have I never suffered through the bother and disruption snow can cause? Continue reading
The Devil’s Commission
14 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Scribbling, Things
I don’t know about West of Channel and West of the Pond – but here in Italy, it usually goes like this: you are having a normal conversation with some non-writing acquaintance or some editee and/or young hopeful, and all goes swimmingly, until they ask you about one particular play or story, and you said that oh yes, that was a commission from… Continue reading
And More of Sir Simon
09 Saturday Dec 2017
Posted in Theatre
And just in case you wonder, no: Sir Simon is most definitely NOT appeased.
I went to see Canterville again last night, and things kept happening. First, Mr. Otis had to croak his way through, thanks to a gigantic throat-ache. Then the points keeping Sir Simon’s cloak in place gave, so the cloak dropped to the floor and mingled with the chains, very nearly sending our poor Ghost a-tripping. And finally, we suffered (very much, believe me!) through two and a half missed entries.. Continue reading
The Ghost in the (Stage) Machine
07 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Theatre
So, the Canterville Ghost’s second first night came and went – and it was… interesting.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of things that saw it fit to happen. missed cues, blanks, last minutes flying rescues (because the Company is made up of fast thinkers), hitches, mixed-up lines, missteps, misplaced props, a wobbly wing… and the most egregious of them all: our Duke of Cheshire wandering onstage during a scene where not only he didn’t belong – but the Otis Twins were commenting his absence in detail – much to their harried mother’s despair… Continue reading
Let it Snow!
02 Saturday Dec 2017
Posted in Poetry
Tags
No, it isn’t snowing here. I wish… Well, perhaps not right now, tonight being “my” Canterville Ghost’s second first night* – but still.
Not that I have many hopes, actually: it never snows in my corner of the world. It used to, but it almost never does it anymore… I did catch a rather epic snowfall in Bologna a few weeks ago – but right here? It hasn’t happened in years, much less in December – when, by rights, tradition and sentimental fallacy, it should snow cats and dogs. Continue reading
Taking Stock
30 Thursday Nov 2017
Posted in Scribbling
So, the last day of November… Time for reviews, isn’t it?
Let’s begin with my not-quite-NaNoWriMo. I meant to work on my new on spec play – the one without even a working title – and so I did: the other night I finished the first draft, with a couple of days to spare. It is a very first-drafty first draft, and will require a lot of work still, of course – but there it is, and not too horrible. I think I can count it as done.
But that’s not all. Considering how December is a month for sporadic writing at best, I might as well take stock of my writing year in general. Let’s see… Continue reading
A Paper Dentist
23 Thursday Nov 2017
Posted in Theatre
Because I’m going to the dentist this afternoon, for my first ever canal root therapy, I’m wallowing in abject terror – and all I can think of is dentist-related.
Therefore, from the first act of George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell:
In a dentist’s operating room on a fine August morning in 1896. Not the usual tiny London den, but the best sitting room of a furnished lodging in a terrace on the sea front at a fashionable watering place. Continue reading
The Movie
16 Thursday Nov 2017
They were making my children’s play into a movie.
Perhaps it was a slightly peculiar choice, but after all, what do I know?
Big production, too.
It was to be out next July.
Is July a good month for movies? No idea, really. Continue reading
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