Tennessee Williams - The Glass Menagerie / Malthouse

Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.

Tennessee Williams is one of those figures who has something of a hold over my mind. Thanks to extemporanea, it's possible to reconstruct that the last time - and the main previous time - that I experienced him with particular sharpness was a good seven years ago; but in the perpetual netflix of my unconscious, he's always flickeringly there on distant rotation.

Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

Having re-read the text just before seeing the Malthouse's current production (Eamon Flack), including Williams' extended production notes, I was well primed for what turned out to be a faithful staging, with the addition of the 'screen device' that is written into the play text working well with play's themes and feeling, as well as being very of the moment (in fact the last play I saw, the current Miss Julie, used video and projection in a similar way although to different effect), and Tom's presumed homosexuality much more clearly suggested than in the subtext of the play as written.

The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings.

Good set, lighting, acting (Harry Greenwood, Luke Mullins, Pamela Rabe, Rose Riley - all contriving to look of the period). It didn't quite catch fire but still, pretty darn fine.

"I don't suppose you remember me at all."

(w/ Ash)

Ryan Adams - 1989

Well I like both Ryan Adams and Taylor Swift, but - as this track by track cover album made me appreciate - for different reasons I guess. Adams is sincere here, translating Swift's songs into wistful alt-country troubadour vein, but unfortunately for the most part it doesn't really work - Swift is a quality songwriter but she writes for the 'pow' of her own style and without that delivery and production, affairs are a bit dull, even something of a downer. Exceptions: "Out of the Woods", "This Love", "I Know Places"; not sure why, but those are the three that have come to life for me a little in these first couple of listens.

Also, a good review: ... during a performance in Nashville, Adams, who had discussed his annoyance at being confused with the singer Bryan Adams, performed an elegant acoustic cover of that singer’s 1984 megahit “Summer of ’69.” He didn’t appear to be joking. Instead, he placed the song, as he does with Swift’s music, immediately within his own emotional register. It sounded like a Ryan Adams song. The audience, which in the light of day might be inclined to mock the vanilla middle-American soft rock of Bryan Adams, sang along. It knew all the words.

(1989, the original)

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Michael Cera in the most non-George Michael Bluth of Michael Cera roles.*

Three of the most interesting youngish female actors going around at the time (film came out in 2010, six years ago): Brie Larson, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick.

Smaller roles from Aubrey Plaza and Mae Whitman (aka Ann from Arrested Development).

An enjoyable turn from Kieran Culkin, who looks kind of like Tom Hiddleston to me.

Vegan powers!

Flash and sparkle, garage rock and everything pop, attitude and heart. Just right.

(last time; soundtrack)

* Edit for confusing syntax. This was meant to mean "the most Michael Cera role of all Michael Cera roles, apart from George Michael Bluth", and not "the Michael Cera role that is most unlike George Michael Bluth". Obviously.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I've dipped in and out of the X-Men series, though it looks like I've managed to watch all of the first three (apparently without any of them having left a particularly strong positive impression) and I reckon I've seen most of First Class on tv along the way. So I've picked up enough for Days of Future Past's time-travelling bringing together of the two sets of X-men (younger/older: McAvoy/Stewart, Fassbender/McKellen) to make sense, but not been immersed enough for the emotional beats to hit fully home; still, this was good.

The Jungle Book

Quite the enjoyable romp. Rightly confident in its animal and jungle CGI, and pings along nicely story-wise too. Plus a top shelf voice cast - notably Bill Murray as Baloo, Christopher Walken as King Louie, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera (although I couldn't place it till the credits).

(w/ Rob and Laura)

Steve Carr - A Manual for Small Archives / others (CCP)

Three sets of works here but only Steve Carr's grabbed me. "Range" (bisected customised golf balls), "Smoke Bubble", "Watermelon" (a video ending with a satisfying bang):

(w/ trang)

Community season 6

Right on form, and if this is how it ends (as seems likely, that memetic "and a movie" notwithstanding) then it's on a good note, and one that feels like a proper ending, with many of the joys that the show has offered throughout its run, now coloured a maybe slightly darker hue by the passage of time. As an aside - it's impressive in these last couple of seasons how well the show survives the departure of some key cast members and integrates new ones.

(1-3 (again), 4 (again), 5)

"Miss Julie" (MTC)

I've learned to go for these 19th and early 20th century European playwrights in picking my subscriptions at the start of each year, because however loosely or closely adapted the stagings turn out to be, they often offer an experience that other art doesn't and which feels quintessentially of the theatre. In the case of "Miss Julie", the effect was hard to pin down - it has an impact, and drew me thoroughly in, yet at the same time felt elusive due to its frame of reference being somewhat floating, not clearly moored in milieu nor therefore perspective (the live video projections of the action being played out within the glass box of the kitchen set worked for me, though).

Also, it's interesting reading about Strindberg and this play in particular after the fact of seeing it (especially Alison Croggon's take), and comparing that against my own (uninformed at the time) experience - not being aware of the misogyny or the ways in which Kip Williams (also responsible for last year's great "Love and Information" and the all-female "Lord of the Flies" from a couple of years back) has reshaped it for this current staging.

(w/ Meribah - also, by coincidence, my theatre companion for both of those previous two Williams-directed plays!)

The End of Violence soundtrack

Ry Cooder, and as soundtracky as they come. I've been listening to the film's other soundtrack - the one with songs - for years, and this more score-like, entirely intrumental one makes an apt, ghostly complement, Cooder's familiar guitar theme reverberating and drifting at intervals.