A novelist whose name escapes me said, "All writing is
about writing. Everything else is a lie."
Candice
--- Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Well, there can be great pleasure in watching a
> virtuoso at work. Even if it
> is finally unsatisfying. At least it's never
> embarrassing. (On the other
> hand, one must risk embarrassment - but that's
> another question altogether -
> there are those poets who huddle under the parapet
> playing cards or doing
> embroidery, smugly sure that they will never trip
> head over arse into folly)
> -
>
> It's hard to know about Olivier; that kind of acting
> looks inevitably old
> fashioned now. And given that all that's left is
> videos and written
> accounts, and that videos can never - or very very
> very seldom - capture
> what an actor can do in the theatre, it's impossible
> to know what he was
> like. My father saw Olivier do Macbeth at Stratford
> and never forgot it. I
> will never know what he experienced, because I
> wasn't there (which is the
> great beauty of theatre, since it is inescapably
> ephemeral and
> unrecordable). But my father always spoke of that
> experience with great
> feeling, and I'd suggest that something rather more
> than virtuosity was
> happening there.
>
> My personal preference (in both poetry and theatre)
> is for the kind of
> emotional rawness and depth that can only be
> attained with great skill and
> intelligence (and honesty, hence my dislike of
> sincerity). Blake, Rimbaud,
> Lorca, HD, Tsetaeyeva, well, dozens of others.
>
> All best
>
> A
>
>
>
> On 6/7/07, Caleb Cluff <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > >>>>"If a poet has something besides themselves
> and their gift to share
> > with us".
> >
> > Exactly. It was the criticism, to draw in Alison's
> actorly analogy, of
> > Olivier. Brilliant. Impressive. But eventually: to
> what end, other than
> > to display the actor's brilliance? Which is not
> sincerity, of course.
> > That's rather akin to pissing on the stage.
> >
> > Objectivity, then. There's absolutely nothing
> wrong with feeling. I'd
> > like to feel more, and less, and clearly. I'd like
> to be able to love
> > better, and hate less. Admirable, everyday
> feelings. But they have
> > nothing to do with writing poetry, at least as it
> works for me. If one
> > can't detach their sincere, heartfelt impressions
> from language, they
> > have a career at Hallmark. But making language
> ride the feeling - isn't
> > that nearer? And nearer, surely, is all we ever
> get.
> >
> > 'Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
> > And my next self thou harder hast engrossed:
> > Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;
> > A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed.'
> >
> > Sonnet 133.
> >
> > Caleb
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
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