pumpkinstrokemarrow

A first in the sense that we had never before been in such a small audience, which with the two of us totalled 4. Not including the 2 attendants who were sufficiently interested to sit in with us.

A strange and compelling film, with much of the interest arising from its setting in a rather run down - run down not a shanty town - suburb of Buenos Aires and from using what looked like locals for much of the cast. A tale of a famous, unpleasant and absent father hanging over a hung-up and broken-up son. The Guardian review made much of the Oedipal content, something it seems that Coppola is rather into. With the additional twist that Coppola Junior had a middle ranking role in the production of the film. The Guardian review put it all down as rather pretentious. But I thought that trying to do something important, running the risk of being thought to be pretending, was better than not trying. Settling, perhaps, for some banal tale of drug running and corrupt police in the suburbs.

Last night I did some pretending of a different sort by attending, in a front stalls seat returned by a young Russian lady, a performance of the 'Three Sisters' by a famous Moscow Theatre - see http://www.sovremennik.ru/ - in Russian. A language which I do not speak at all. Nor had I ever been to a performance of this particular play before. I did take the precaution of reading it in advance - my 1927 reprint from Chatto & Windus coming in handy for the purpose. An edition sufficiently old fashioned that it came entirely naked. Apart from a contents page and such like, no preface, no introduction and no notes. The only concession was to list the characters in the play at the beginning of each play. Which was just as well. Not being able to read Russian names, I find it takes a while before they stick, so a list of characters is essential. I almost went to the bother of photocopying the thing so that I did not have to keep flipping backwards and forwards.

The performance was made possible by the generosity of Oligarch Roman so I shall be able to make hay in TB, an establishment which contains many supporters of his football club. The audience appeared to be in large part young, dressy (in a foreign sort of way) and Russian. There were also some older Russian ladies who looked exactly how I had imagined them to look. Plus various English speakers, including Sir P. Hall himself some rows behind me. Luckily there was another English speaker, another return, sitting next to me.

I was surprised at how well the thing worked. Performed with terrific verve over three hours with subtitles which I was too far forward to see with comfort - but which I could manage none the less. There seemed to be a lot more verve than we put into Chekov. A lot more brassy and a lot less shabby genteel. Lots more noisy music than I am used to - but which worked on this occasion. It came across as a tragedy - which it was - but I think the tragedy would have been more tempered by the comedy had one understood the Russaian.

See 5 February 5 and 20 March 2008 for previous thoughts on the chekovian subject. I am sorry to say that I could remember more or less nothing of it last night and not much more when I read my contemporary thoughts this morning. Perhaps it will start to come back to me during the day. Perhaps I will dig the play out and reread it.

PS: as I will be visiting the big town several times this week, I had thought to indulge myself in a weekly season ticket for old times sake. Not the same as a proper annual season, but something. Only to discover that even were I to travel four times in the week, travelling off-peak with my wrinkly, it is still cheaper to buy the tickets one at a time. So no indulgence on that front. But I did come across a job description for a post at JPMorgan Asset Management. Amusing now to read all the crud that finds its way into such things. How you must be strong in this, that and the other. Team skills got a mention, naturally.