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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
Eight months and pennies! Where have I been all this time? Where has all this time gone while I wasn’t watching?
The fact is, I had a rather nasty flu just after Christmas, and it took me more than a month to be back on my feet, and afterwards… I don’t know. I hadn’t posted a single line in either of my blogs for the whole of January, and then… and then. It’s the way these things happen, I’m told.
But now I’m back. I’ve wanted to be back for some time – only, it was summer, when a) blog life slows down, and b) bloggers grow lazy… well, lazier. So I thought I’d wait for September, and here I am.
What have I been up to, these past eight months – beside not blogging? Well, I’ve translated and adapted a lot for the Company (I’ll tell you more about this in time), I’ve decided to write a short story every month (and stuck with it so far), I’ve sent Out There my novel and a couple of the stories, I’ve directed two school plays (one in collaboration, one on my own), I’ve gone ahead with a (very) long term project of reorganising my study, I’ve spent three lovely days in Florence with my mother, I’ve had my yearly Reading Week, I’ve enjoyed a good deal of great theatre with the Summer Season, I’ve hunted about virtual bookstalls for Paul Roche’s translation of Prometheus Bound, I’ve put together a special Palcoscenico di Carta/The Paper Stage (happening tonight), and I’m afraid I have parted ways with the Squirrels…
So yes, I have plenty to tell you. The plan is a very straightforward one: I’ll go back to my leisurely ways, and post once a week, on Thursdays. I hope you’ll forgive the long hiatus and join me again for the ride. I’ve missed you, O Readers.
Let’s start again, shall we?
Some twenty years ago, on an early summer day like this, I was sitting in a street café in Pavia, waiting for a friend. I’d just bought myself a book at the bookshop next door – and, anticipating a longish wait, I ordered a grapefruit squash, and started to read.
It’s taken me a surprisingly long time to become aware of the kind of image you see here on the right. I mean, now that I know, I’m finding that the Internet is a-swarm with them – especially Pinterest, where I spend far more time than is good for me… You type “backstage” or “theatre” or anything remotely related, and up they crop by the dozen.
So… the day after tomorrow we go onstage.
Here we go: the School Play – now officially titled Faults of the Fathers, will go onstage in a couple of weeks, and we are hard at work on it. Yesterday afternoon, as I arrived at the Tiny Theatre for rehearsals, I met a friend and colleague at the door.
So I was asked to read a manuscript, with an eye to a possible stage adaptation. It happened in that roundabout way that entails friends and friends of mutual friends… I’m sure you know how it is. And because of some initial insistence that I should meet the author first, or I could not really understand, I went in with a certain amount of wariness… 
So, the Canterville Ghost’s second first night came and went – and it was… interesting.
Do you remember when I told you about 