There is a problem if a writer doesn't like the characters s/he is writing about. If s/he despises their theories and their minds and their behaviour. If s/he has neither professional nor personal admiration for them. There is a problem if s/he bases his/her play on 'real people' in whom s/he cannot find redeeming features.

Or perhaps this is not true, perhaps there are several instances of plays, that work wonderfully in spite of all this.

Calico is an enjoyable play. So it's a bit too vaudevillian in some places, and some of the characters are not mapped out strongly enough, but never mind that. Imelda Staunton is brilliant. Had I been a knight, I would have laid my sword before her in admiration. The themes are interesting; schizophrenia (or not), with a touch of Tourette's (or not) and a bit of incest (or not). The ignorant family, the kind stranger. The expectations, the necessity, the heritage of being famous - or infamous.

It would have benefited greatly from not having been about Joyce and Beckett. At certain times the writer had to do the soap-opera-thing and have them explain themselves in too much detail - detail that had no real significance within the story. The writer, in the programme, comes through as a man with a vengeance - wanting to expose to the world how insensitive, incestuous and pointless Joyce was and how insensitive, incestuous and evil-spirited the Joyce-estate is.

But perhaps I'm just too fond of Joyce and his writing to see a clear picture. My theatre-buddy, not a Joyce reader, thoroughly enjoyed the play.

Nevertheless, in celebration of James Joyce I am reading James Joyce and the Politics of Egoism. And I'm listening to Arabesque. It feels good.
posted by charlotte at 19:20 - comment