TheBanyanTree: Me, Romeo and Juliet

[woofie]

I had to forward this to the Spouse (without permission) with this note:

"Spouse, you must read this... is your favrit c j dennis!"

This should be published in the Weekend Australian or similar... bloody 
superb!!!!!!

W:)

On 27/09/2013 9:08 AM, Peter Macinnis wrote:
> I suppose I didn't approach the production at the Drama theatre in the 
> Sydney Opera House with the right reverent attitudes.  Of course, I am 
> rather keen on C. J. Dennis' 'The Sentimental Bloke', written a 
> century ago in Australian vernacular--and in particular, the part 
> where they go to see said play.  Here's an excerpt:
>
> 'Wot's in a name?" she sez. 'Struth, I dunno.
> Billo is just as good as Romeo.
> She may be Juli—er or Juli—et ——
> 'E loves 'er yet.
> If she's the tart 'e wants, then she's 'is queen,
> Names never count ... But ar, I like "Doreen!"
>
> A sweeter, dearer sound I never 'eard;
> Ther's music 'angs around that little word,
> Doreen! ... But wot was this I starts to say
> About the play?
> I'm off me beat. But when a bloke's in love
> 'Is thorts turns 'er way, like a 'omin' dove.
>
> This Romeo 'e's lurkin' wiv a crew ——
> A dead tough crowd o' crooks —— called Montague.
> 'Is cliner's push —— wot's nicknamed Capulet ——
> They 'as 'em set.
> Fair narks they are, jist like them back—street clicks,
> Ixcep' they fights wiv skewers 'stid o' bricks.
>
> ***********
>
> That aside, there were warnings in the foyer that there would be 
> bangs' flashes, smoking and nudity.  Clearly, this was to be a modern 
> production.
>
> I grimaced slightly at this news, and declared that if Friar Laurence 
> got his kit off, I was leaving.  No worries there, it was only R and J 
> who disrobed, and they kept their knickers on, mainly because all the 
> actors were miked (!!) and they needed somewhere to hide the battery 
> pack and transmitter.  Sadly, the microphones did nothing for their 
> diction, but that was OK because they were messing about with the script.
>
> Anyhow, it being Grand Final season, when the non-round-ball football 
> codes send out their stupidest alpha males to maim each other, and all 
> the bogans go mad.  So I asked Chris if we should barrack for the 
> Montagues or the Capulets, and then things started to degenerate.
>
> Before the opening, a ladder somehow got involved with a part of the 
> audience as it came down off the stage and then back into the wings, 
> and I expressed the hope that they would enliven the proceedings by a 
> short excerpt from 'Pyramus and Thisbe', re-scored for two choruses, 
> with the ladder playing the part of Wall and offering a plethora of 
> chinks.  That would have been good, I said, and after, she agreed.
>
> Still, no such luck, but hope springs eternal, and I began to hope for 
> a proper pastiche, just after Friar Laurence slipped in one of the 
> sonnets (116: "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds 
> ...") as the marriage lines.
>
> (I might add that Friar Laurence was depicted in a garden of ferns, 
> collecting *flowers*!  Some botanist and druggist he'd be! Mind you, 
> they were probably GM ferns, so I suppose anything's possible.)
>
> Given the sonnet cross-over, I began to hope for a cage fight between 
> Macbeth and Macduff (didn't happen), a cream pie fight between Titania 
> and Oberon, formation nude bathing in a bird bath by knights in 
> armour, a cameo role for Caliban and a kraken (all ditto).  I began to 
> count on the return of the ladder to retrieve helium balloons that had 
> escaped in the party scene, with Bottom and Falstaff as the 
> retrievers, dancing on the ladder to the rock music playing for the 
> party.  Again, no luck, but all the party-goers wore white rabbit 
> masks and that was a plus.
>
> You could spot Capulet, though, because he had a greasy pony-tail that 
> looked silly at the back of a rabbit.
>
> But at the end, Juliet was still alive, and she had a gun, and 
> apparently knew how to use it.  I'm fairly sure that's not how it 
> happened in the 1600s.  I hoped she would fire a shot into the fly 
> loft, with two rubber chickens falling to the stage, but Paris had 
> used three shots to try and kill Romeo, Romeo got the gun and used one 
> to kill Paris, and she must have wanted to make every shot count, so 
> no rubber chickens.
>
> Still, when a pantomime horse crossed the stage, followed by a 
> hunchback crying "A Norse, a Norse, my Kingdom for a Norse", a flood 
> of slaughter ran through the theatre when we realised he was doing a 
> Danish accent and waving a skull.  We were a sophisticated audience.
>
> Actually, that might not have happened (but it should have), or if it 
> did happen, it might have been a flood of laughter that ran: my notes 
> are hard to read, and by then I was concentrating on the structure of 
> the next book, and trying not to echo 'The Bloke' in the fight scenes:
>
> "Put in the boot!" I sez. "Put in the boot!"
> "'Ush!" sez Doreen ... "Shame!" sez some silly coot.
>
>
> Well might we all say, "Put in the boot" to this performance. Next 
> time, I want a re-run of 'Charley's Aunt'.
>
> peter
>


-- 

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