un barrage contre le pacifique
Last night at the French cultural Institute I saw what we all realized after 20 minutes was a one-woman adaption of the Marguarite Dumas novel "un barrage contre le Pacifique". As French majors from Istanbul University fidgeted in their seats, I thought about how much I really didn't like "Moderato Cantabile" and that I should have known better. Even the most accultured French speaking Turks, who came to the play talking audibly on their cell phones "oh oui, bien sur, tout de suite" to prove that they had "le street cred", could be heard deflating as we sat through a twenty minute monologue about illness delivered by an actress illuminated only by a prop karosene lamp. There were three props hanging from cords above the stage, and I knew that as she went to slowly put on the flapper dress, and to put on lipstick in the small mirror, people in the audience were also saying to themselves "2 down, 1 to go". About an hour into it she started a vignette of soft-spoken denouement each of which had all the theatrical look of being the last scene. Slowly folding a sheet she had used in the first scene, reading a letter so long that the stage prop was three long manila pages, lowering the stage light with the conlusion of each drawn out histrionic sentence. But the play didnt' end, the actress kept talking. And talking. In that incredibly annoying theatre whisper that nobody in real life would ever talk like. I had been up at 5:30, spending 5 hours in the Bogazaci university trying to kill time before this very play, so this was dramaturgic euthanasia. It started getting rediculous, in a hilarious way. The euphemistic coughing, the creek of seat springs. And then, I thought about Kierkegaard (as I always do in moments of fear and trembling)
Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended.... Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored.... My deviation from popular opinion is adequately expressed by the phrase "rotation of crops." The method I propose does not consist in changing the soil but, like proper crop rotation, consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops. Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes (p. 289, 291)
I started watching the play and finding it hard not laugh. She slowly takes off her high heels and places them neatly by a box, she sits down and speaks to the part of the fly system where the Big Other ordained to listen to soliluquoys is supposed to be. But there is no end in sight.
There was someone whose chatter certain circumstances made it necessary for me to listen to. He was ready at every opportunity with a little philosophical lecture which was utterly boring. Driven almost to depair, I discoveed suddenly that he perspired unusually profusely when he spoke. I saw how the pearls of sweat gathered on his brow, then joined in a stream, slid down his nose, and ended hanging in a drop at the ectreme tip of it. From that moment everything was changed; I could even take pleasure in inciting him to begin his philosophical instruction, just to observe the sweat on his brow and on his nose.
I thought about writing my own play which used every theatrical trick in the book to trick the audience into thinking the play was ending, three hours of toasts, truisms, using the gun shown in act one, reunited lovers, and dimming lights. The last hour would be in almost complete darkness except for maybe a prop cigarette, smoked for 45 minutes by a detective talking about how lonely it is working the beat.
Unfortunately the play did end with the actress standing front and center. The stage was bare because she had already striked the set to have business during her hour and a half. We all held our applause thinking "of all things, this is the end." She bowed a few times and I applauded three whole claps after everyone else had stopped.
Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended.... Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored.... My deviation from popular opinion is adequately expressed by the phrase "rotation of crops." The method I propose does not consist in changing the soil but, like proper crop rotation, consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops. Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes (p. 289, 291)
I started watching the play and finding it hard not laugh. She slowly takes off her high heels and places them neatly by a box, she sits down and speaks to the part of the fly system where the Big Other ordained to listen to soliluquoys is supposed to be. But there is no end in sight.
There was someone whose chatter certain circumstances made it necessary for me to listen to. He was ready at every opportunity with a little philosophical lecture which was utterly boring. Driven almost to depair, I discoveed suddenly that he perspired unusually profusely when he spoke. I saw how the pearls of sweat gathered on his brow, then joined in a stream, slid down his nose, and ended hanging in a drop at the ectreme tip of it. From that moment everything was changed; I could even take pleasure in inciting him to begin his philosophical instruction, just to observe the sweat on his brow and on his nose.
I thought about writing my own play which used every theatrical trick in the book to trick the audience into thinking the play was ending, three hours of toasts, truisms, using the gun shown in act one, reunited lovers, and dimming lights. The last hour would be in almost complete darkness except for maybe a prop cigarette, smoked for 45 minutes by a detective talking about how lonely it is working the beat.
Unfortunately the play did end with the actress standing front and center. The stage was bare because she had already striked the set to have business during her hour and a half. We all held our applause thinking "of all things, this is the end." She bowed a few times and I applauded three whole claps after everyone else had stopped.
Comments