I listened to a piece about it on NPR. Do I get partial credit?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130246283&ft=1&f=
I saw it at the ART in Cambridge last year and found it only okay. It starts off promisingly, with the office worker/Carraway-to-be reading the novel and people around him popping in at moments that resonate with the book, in a way that makes you question whether they are or aren't related to the text he's reading and at what level reality is being created here. But soon enough it slides into all of those people simply being the characters, a 6.5-hour-long staged reading with people acting out the parts.
Which, okay fine: it's an amazing book. But they start off so promisingly high concept that it's disapointing to have it collapse so quickly into something more pedestrian. They don't even return at the end to the original office characters; once it gets going there's no reference to the original conceit.
I heard about this. The idea of a having to sit in the same seat for seven hours makes me want to scream.
I liked it okay because I love the book, and it was nice to hear it read aloud, but mostly what Blume said.
The linked review is very easy to read as sarcastic. You know how something staying exactly the same for seven hours is fascinating? This is like that. One of the actors is all "We'll resume in 90 minutes" and I was like whoa, the power of that, you know? The lead guy even memorizes part of the script. It's amazing.
The length didn't particularly bother me, and it wasn't boring. It just didn't particularly do justice to the concept or the material.
I am not a Fitzgerald fan, so I can't possibly get any pleasure from it. So does Blume and ST's viewing satisfy your need to read a review by someone you know, Ben?
It's not like it's 7 continuous hours, guys. It's four segments of varying length (but none over two hours, I don't think), with two smaller intermissions and a 90 minute dinner break.
11: And the seats probably don't have needles on them. That's still a long time.
Anyway, I had trouble sitting through the LoTRs movies individually. And those had a ton of stabbing and not a single proto-yuppie.
The length didn't bother me that much either. As Tweety said, there were plenty of chances to get away, should you decide you've had enough.
Though I'm probably not the best person to ask. Unabridged Faust in a remote warehouse? Yes please! Six-hour Castorf production of Crime and Punishment? Sure! Though that one at least had a naked Martin Wuttke. Which is always a little weird, because given his iconic role in this, it's kind of like perving out on Hitler. Oh well.
Back off lady. He's mine.
Anyway, I had trouble sitting through the LoTRs movies individually.
Well, sure. Because they're unbelievably boring and the second two are devoid of all color and they're each about 75% longer than they need to be.
My point being, I liked those books. But yes, they moved way slow.
I'm terrible at sitting through movies in general, though. Let's keep it under 90 minutes, folks.
I reiterate that it's not at all the same. Every time I ask Blume if she wants to watch a movie, her first question -- before "what is it about?" or "who is in it?" or "who directed it?" or "why should I ever believe anything you say about movies after you tried to make me watch 'It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World'?" -- is "how long is it?"
And plays are often worse because the more innovative the play, the less comfortable the seats. At least that has been my experience.
Has this been discussed?
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2010/07/13/my-12-hour-blind-date-with-dostoevsky/
her first question [...] is "how long is it?"
You'd think she'd know that by memory at this point in a marriage.
"We're not watching a movie if you don't get that fruit off the ground."
16, 19: I presume taking ADD drugs during pregnancy is discouraged.
I'm likely to see it. I like that kind of thing. And Parsifal and Gotterdammerung clock in at five and a half hours so the Sitzfleisch is not entirely unpracticed in these matters.
Blume, you should have come down for the gazillion hour Peter Stein "The Possessed" staging on Governor's Island. Or, you know, that other gazillion hour Robert Wilson thing because you know you secretly love Robert Wilson.
(At Statewide Nerd Camp we sat on a lawn one night a week and read Gatsby aloud. I got to read the lovely last lines.)
Blume, you should have come down for the gazillion hour Peter Stein "The Possessed" staging on Governor's Island.
See 22.
22 is great, and demonstrates something I've believed for a long time, that one should not have a first date that involves any kind of entertainment. Watching a play or movie, or going to a concert, can bring out strange feelings and behaviors that might be endearing if you already know the person, but come off as totally crazy if you don't.
I have a disturbingly large percentage of friends with whom I pretty much cannot go see anything. One gentleman of my acquaintance is the sort who says, "Oh, it's hot today. Let's go spend a few hours in an air-conditioned theater! I don't care what we see!" and then comes out threatening to murder everyone for miles because he is SO FUCKING OUTRAGED by how much Wall-E or The Hangover sucked.
30: oops. pwned. I got all excited about lengthy theatrical ordeals. (Was at the theater for a mere four hours for the second half of Angels in America Saturday night.)
There's this really unique feeling as the lights go down before something unusually durational (sorry I keep wanting to avoid "long" especially in the context of "in the dark" because the fruit, they hang low) half dread, half delight. I've blug about this at times w/r/t stuff like Tristan and Einstein on the Beach. If you go with other people who are really into it, it feels like some sort of team sport bonding. I imagine, anyway.
(Now I wish it were a season with Tristan in it. It is such a long wait between seasons with Tristan in them.)
It is such a long wait between seasons with Tristan in them
Can you get yourself excited about the long wait, too?
Or, you know, that other gazillion hour Robert Wilson thing because you know you secretly love Robert Wilson.
The fact that I keep going to Robert Wilson productions would seem to suggest this, yes. Because they're 'classics' or because I can't resist a production of a Heiner Müller play or because they have Isabelle Huppert or Nina Hoss. And much as I hate his aesthetic, I have to admit that there were moments in his productions of Quartett and Leonce und Lena that made them worthwhile.
But RW doesn't fail interestingly, he fails annoyingly. It's the crap that just gets run through the RWmaschine that I can't stand. RW does... Shakespeare! Edgar Allen Poe! Caligari! I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but his adaptation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the only theater productions I've ever walked out of.
the gazillion hour Peter Stein "The Possessed" staging
I have watched gazillion hour Peter Stein productions on video, which is perhaps taking theater nerdery to another level.
36: They're doing a Boris Godunov that was supposed to be Peter Stein right now, but there was some behind-the-scenes mishegas maybe just involving visa complications but maybe involving Artistic Personalities and so basically his production team's set designs went on and Stephen Wadsworth directed. Very dull. I left 2/3 of the way through, but I have become sort of bad about that and anyway it was mostly the music I was responding to.
If you go with other people who are really into it, it feels like some sort of team sport bonding. I imagine, anyway.
I've had this experience. I was once part of a loose group of students who would all get theater tickets through a certain professor, so then we'd be sitting together or at least near each other, and could talk about things during the intermission and hang out in the canteen after the show and try to meet the actors.
It helps when you can drink beer in the theater.
It helps when you can drink beer in the theater.
Boston theatres must have more stalls in the toilets than most British ones in that case.
Unabridged Faust in a remote warehouse?
I had no idea Faust was ever staged at all, abridged or otherwise.
41: One of the segments of a Simpson's Halloween Special was based loosely on Faust.
It is! There's a two-hour Thalheimer production (Thalheimer = abridged classics) in the repertoire at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and for a while they were doing Part II as well. A shame that it's fallen out of the repertoire; it was revelatory and better than Part I, I thought.
remote warehouse
Does that mean porta-potties?
Hey Blume, did you like the movie Heaven's Gate? The Harvard graduation scene, Isabelle Huppert skinny dipping in the North Fork of the Flathead, the bored rich frat boy final scene? The roller skate scene?
Harvard graduation afterparty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvaaM_Wjfxo&
Somehow a bunch of the movie is on youtube, but the rollerskating scene got deleted by MGM.
From 22: 11:37 A.M. When will these freethinkers stop reveling? And is the one with glasses Virginsky or Liputin? The narrator is playing an accordion.
I hope the rollerskating scene in Heaven's Gate is as funtastic as the mini golf scene in Raging Bull.
I see that one reviewer compares the rink to Eden, and Isabelle Huppert to Eve.
Site says the NY run is sold out. Not sure if "day of" tickets are liable to be available or not.
I must say that Heaven's Gate lived down to my expectations.
Whereas once every generation an ensemble madcap road comedy comes along to preserve the stupid humor of the time like ants in amber. It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Rat Race come to mind. The former should be viewed in the spirit of sociological research rather than entertainment.
"d have nb" in 53 was me.
And speaking of New York, let me be the first to suggest that I will be drinking at Fresh Salt this Thursday* starting ~7 PM and will be glad to socialize with anyone else there at the time who makes themselves known to me or vice versa. Am in NY Wed through Sat so Wed or Fri are possibilities, but Thursday looks best.
*Short notice I realize, but my schedule has not been as firm as I would like.
I also plan on stopping at the Marriott Algonquin on my way down for a token "take *that* neb authenticity-mongering aesthetes of Unfogged" drink. The intellectually bootless and unhorsed may prefer to start there.
Also, I basically agree with 131, although from my perspective the things the French are arguing for are comically luxurious.
I am reminded of the UPS strike, when I heard (on NPR, naturally) wishy-washy supposedly liberal commentators cautioning that strikes by people who were generally making decent paychecks (a distortion in any case) hurt the labor movement and so were unworthy of sympathy. Unlike, presumably, the whipped-dog acquiescence that's gotten us so far in the past generation. Strikers who unite to fight for things that seem luxurious? Those are your fucking friends, people.
Jesus McQueen takes strong action towards thread solidarity!
57: he misspoke; it should have been "eccentricity-auguring synaesthetes".
I still don't have a fucking stand mixer, goddamnit.
Oh, I see. Fuck. I also hate Robert Wilson, if that helps.
57: Did I say you did? It was the mongerers *instead* of you. I simply recall you feeling the weight of history should render the Algonquin* off-limits. I'm thinking the recent corporatization wipes all of that clean; I'm drinking there as my way of indirectly supporting deranged Repulican candidates everywhere via anonymous corporate donations.
*I actually did stop in there once with my wife either before or after seeing a show. We slayed each other.
55 JP, are you still planning on being in NYC tomorrow evening?
Yes, was going to post a reminder but this thread was dead. Fresh Salt ~7.