the rewrite
The following essay
does NOT contain any spoilers beyond a throw-away joke at the
beginning of a play.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I
used to live in NY and only went to see plays when visitors came in
from out of town and forced me to go. One such occassion involved a
very distant friend (1) who bought us tickets to see the play
Communicating Doors (1994) by Alan Ayckbourne. This would have been
about 1998.
To avoid spoilers, I must tell only a very minimum version of this joke.
An attractive young woman in an
outrageous skin-tight leather outfit is invited to a hotel room in
London. She is a "specialist" she says, a dominatrix, no sex. Her nickname is "Poopay" which is
not an appropriate stage name for her specialization so she is
looking for a more dignified name, perhaps "Severa". This
name should connote the idea of a goddess and inspire awe and fear in her customers.
Our Goddess in human form from the San Francisco Production
Another character, a
respectable older woman, asks her what her real name is. "Phoebe",
she replies, in total disgust at the outrageous fortune that has
assigned her such a wimpy first name.
The whole audience laughs. What's so funny, I thought.
Why is everybody laughing?
Then I remembered my classical
mythology and realized, of course, Phoebe is the name of a
Goddess. Well, OK, technically she is a Titan, one of the
sets of children of Uranus and Gaia, and traditionally
associated with the moon. But I think that from this distance a
Titan can be considered to be goddess for all theatrical purposes.
I was entertained by the notion that the playwright would write a throw-away joke that required knowledge of Greek mythology/religion (4) and expect the audience to get it. And of course, I thought it was amusing that in fact the audience in NY did in fact get it. I would not expect that to be the case in most of the country, but hey, maybe I am wrong. Maybe on the East coast this kind of knowledge of classical civilization is part of the standard kit of people who go to the theatre.
Out here in Hollywood, I do not think we would make this kind of assumption. No one would be assumed to know Greek religion/mythology unless it happened to be featured in a recent graphic novel. Perhaps if some underage pop star or ingenue called herself "Phoebe the Goddess" on television or the internet only then could one be expected to know this bit of cultural information.
It is this understanding and
appreciation of the American audience and, by extension, the world
audience, that makes American films so popular and approachable, I think. (3) In other words, we dumb it down or in some cases, don't bother to hire writers that would know this kind of stuff to begin with. That is the best way: ignorance is good for commerce.
_________________________________________________
1. Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun
Microsystems.
2. By prompting I mean, there was
nothing that would indicate a reference to Greek religion was about
to occur. Had this been a performance of a play by Euripides, for
example, then that would be a different matter.
3. How do we know for certain that American films are the best? By that one key attribute by which all American cultural works are judged: the amount of money it generates, possibly adjusted for inflation and exchange rate. That one criteria above all else condenses all the vague and subjective qualities of a creative work into a single, objective index of excellence. And it is the genius of our culture and civilization to recognize this and put all our energies and resources into this one overarching goal: make more money.
4. Greek religion was always presented to me as "mythology" which implied some sort of fictional folk belief. Actually, what we call mythology is a form of deprecation, the Greek's thought of it as religion and were quite devout about it judging from some of the votive deposits that have been found and described in literature. So where you see the term "mythology" applied to the Greeks, just substitute "religion" and you will be much closer to the reality.
_________________________________________________
3. How do we know for certain that American films are the best? By that one key attribute by which all American cultural works are judged: the amount of money it generates, possibly adjusted for inflation and exchange rate. That one criteria above all else condenses all the vague and subjective qualities of a creative work into a single, objective index of excellence. And it is the genius of our culture and civilization to recognize this and put all our energies and resources into this one overarching goal: make more money.
4. Greek religion was always presented to me as "mythology" which implied some sort of fictional folk belief. Actually, what we call mythology is a form of deprecation, the Greek's thought of it as religion and were quite devout about it judging from some of the votive deposits that have been found and described in literature. So where you see the term "mythology" applied to the Greeks, just substitute "religion" and you will be much closer to the reality.
_________________________________________________
See also:
Communicating Doors (1994)
http://communicatingdoors.alanayckbourn.net/
Review of the San Francisco Production of Communicating Doors (spoilers!)
http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=Mickey%20Weems&id=124794
Review of the San Francisco Production of Communicating Doors (spoilers!)
http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=Mickey%20Weems&id=124794
David McCallum's Notes on Communicating
Doors
Phoebe on Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment