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
13 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in Poetry
Tags
birthday, Lightenings, National Portrait Gallery, Poetry, portrait, Ross Wilson, seamus heaney, Squarings
by Ross Wilson, ink and watercolour, 1994
It would have been Seamus Heaney’s birthday, today… So I thought I’d remember him with one of Ross Wilson’s sketched portraits and a poem – one of those miracles of thought, light, questions, wonder, and images so vivid you can taste them on your tongue. Continue reading
06 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in Theatre
Oh, right: not quite mine. Oscar Wilde’s of course – but still, my Italian translation and stage adaptation. Six nights of it, for now – and all of them sold out since late March.
Nina’s people – and, lo and behold! I’ve been allowed to follow the rehearsals. Nina is the sort of director who doesn’t want authors around until opening night, but it seems that I’ve broken that wall, with the result that, for the last week, I’ve practically lived in the first row, taking notes rehearsal after rehearsal, and discussing things afterwards… Continue reading
30 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in Lostintranslation, Poetry
Tags
colour perception, Homer, Iliad, Mark Bradley, Odyssey, oinops pontos, sea, Synaesthesia, Vincenzo Monti, William Gladstone, wine
I remember once being given a writing assignment in which I had to list seven meaningful colours, and write about them… How very fun, was my first reaction – only to find myself hopelessly bogged down as soon as I tried.
I could attach no particular meaning to any one colour – say orange or blue – let alone seven… Continue reading
23 Thursday Mar 2017
Once upon a time I came across an interview or an article – I wish I could remember – in which a historical novelist gleefully told about placing in his latest novel’s prologue a handful of elements that could easily pass for anachronisms. He gleefully anticipated the mails, weblogs and reviews pointing out his “blunders”, and the joys of answering back that, in fact, a lack of written record for some thing before a certain date could not be taken as proof that the same thing did not exist… Continue reading
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