Archives for May 8, 2009

• Description of the complexion of Edward Cullen (the Robert Pattinson character) in Twlight: “literally sparkles”; “like thousands of diamonds” are “embedded in the surface.”
• Description of livestock in the West Country, as written by Dorothy Wordsworth in her journal in 1798: “the sheep glittering in the sunshine.”
Conclusion: English sheep are vampires.
Quotes from Twilight were lifted from Jenny Turner’s terrific essay about the series and movie for the London Review of Books. While I was looking it up, I came across this Twilight-inspired WikiAnswer exchange (presented here with spelling, grammar corrected):
Q. Does vampire skin really sparkle in the sunlight?
A. Unfortunately, vampires don’t really exist.
That is unfortunate — and, according to this news item on i09, also correct: “Two physicists have published an academic paper where they demonstrate, by virtue of geometric progression, that vampires could not exist, since they would almost immediately deplete their entire food supply (a.k.a, all of us).” (Last link via Rebecca Skloot.)

It is still raining. And I just realized that thanks to a fifth-grade production of “Rip Van Winkle” my class put on during elementary school I never hear thunder without thinking “God is bowling.” Or excuse me, “playing nine-pins.”
• A couple things to listen to: Mary Gaitskill reads Vladimir Nabokov’s short story, “Symbols and Signs.” You may think, as I did, that listening to this will be a spinach-y experience — it won’t be. Also amazing, albeit in an entirely different way: Christopher Walken reads “The Raven.” (Second link via Maud.)
• Speaking of Nabokov, scholar and author Alfred Appel, Jr.’s obituary in the New York Times ends with this anecdote:

Speaking at a memorial service for Nabokov in Manhattan in 1977, Mr. Appel recalled telling him about an antiwar protest at Northwestern during which a student had called Mr. Appel a eunuch. Nabokov said quickly, “Oh no, Alfred, you misunderstood him. He called you a unique.”

Sam Jones reminded me that Nabokov also praised Appel’s work in his eccentric “Anniversary Notes” — one of those pieces which ideally would be presented in a fan of index cards.
• Ammon Shea picks his 26 favorite words from Reading The OED. Relatedly, I’m now holding auditions for my new glam rock band, Wonderclout.

I went to Chicago last weekend and returned with a rave in my pocket: TimeLine Theatre Company’s production of The History Boys is a not-to-be-missed event. It’s reviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, along with Propeller’s all-male staging of The Merchant of Venice in Brooklyn. Here’s an excerpt.
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It’s rare for me to have such sharply mixed feelings about a play as I had about Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys” when I first saw it on Broadway in 2006–so mixed, in fact, that I came away not knowing whether I really liked what I’d seen, impressed though I was by Nicholas Hytner’s direction and the performances of Richard Griffiths and the ensemble cast. Ever since then I’ve been wanting to see “The History Boys” done by an American company (Mr. Hytner’s film version was made with the same all-British cast that I saw in New York). Would Mr. Bennett’s knowing tale of a class of self-consciously bright schoolboys and the teacher who loves them too well seem less slick the second time around?
The answer has come with the Chicago premiere of “The History Boys,” which is currently being performed by TimeLine Theatre Company, a highly regarded Windy City troupe that specializes in–logically enough–history plays. To say that TimeLine makes “The History Boys” work is to understate the case by a mile-wide margin. Nick Bowling’s staging is actually more effective in certain key ways than the original National Theatre production, and to my mind more moving as well. While I still have a few lingering doubts about “The History Boys,” I have none whatsoever about TimeLine’s production, which is one of the smartest shows I’ve seen all season long….
No small part of the potent effect of this production derives from Brian Sidney Bembridge’s ingenious environmental set, which envelops the audience (you enter the theater through the boys’ dorm rooms) and heightens the impression that you’re in the middle of the fray. Still, it’s Mr. Bowling and his top-drawer cast who are mainly responsible for changing my mind about “The History Boys.” While I still find Mr. Bennett’s here’s-what-happened-to-everybody ending to be neat to the point of outright patness, I bought into the rest of the play this time around and cared about its characters. So will you….
One of the surest pleasures of the season is the annual visit to Brooklyn’s BAM Harvey Theater of Propeller, Edward Hall’s all-male Shakespeare troupe. This is true even when, as in the case of “The Merchant of Venice,” I question the underlying premise of the production. Mr. Hall has a weakness for rigidly schematic directorial concepts, and this “Merchant,” which is set in a present-day cell block full of shivs and punks, is a case in point. I get the symbolism–it’d be hard not to–but the interpretation rests atop the play like oil on water, and the one-dimensional results seem to be less a full-fledged performance of Shakespeare’s play than a clever commentary on it. On the other hand, Mr. Hall’s staging crackles with testosterone-charged life…
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Read the whole thing here.
To watch a scene from TimeLine Theatre Company’s production of The History Boys, go here.

“The rhythm of the weekend, with its birth, its planned gaieties, and its announced end, followed the rhythm of life and was a substitute for it.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up