Prokofiev’s score for Romeo and Juliet is pitiless in its tragedy, singing with a desperate hope. I mention this, because you’d never have guessed from the flatlining revival that opened the Mariinsky’s London season earlier this week. As Clement Crisp remarks, Romeo and Juliet was created during the siege of Leningrad, a response perhaps to cruel historical forces and to the fragility of … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2014
Survivor stories
I’ve been fretting about memory this summer. How fragile it is. A snapped synapse, a broken connection, and it’s as if a shelf of books and photo albums has fallen away, leaving only a phantom sense of loss. Cultural memory is equally vulnerable. There is something so haunting in the notion of what survives. Wisps of endurance swirling through the tempest of history. It's mind boggling to … [Read more...]
People watching
It’s theatre by any other name. Usually we call it theatre when we’re sitting in the dark, the people are on stage, with the trappings of formality to tell us where we are. Now, however, it’s a Tuesday afternoon, and I’m sitting in the sun in the Peace Gardens in Sheffield. People watching. The busy civic space, with the splash of waterworks and fountains, inhibits earwigging, so I just look. … [Read more...]