I finally, finally think I get the appeal of the Scottish Gentleman now...

And I have SCOTLAND, PA to thank for it. fiveseconddelay showed it to me the other night, and while it was an ok movie on its own merits, as a take on Macky-B it was awesome. Mac's always been my least favorite of Shakey's top four (Hamlet, Othello, and the relatively-underappreciated King Lear), and this was mainly due to the fact that I just... didn't find any of it interesting. I mean, I really just didn't give a shit about any of these people. If I don't care about these characters on some level, then the tragedy is lost, right? Well, I think I get it now.

Mac's a schmuck. He's fortune's true fool. He's Destiny's bitch. He's God's kickball. He's a noir antihero, a poor dumbfuck who gets compromised and suckered into a situation and then scrambles madly to get out of it, ending up fucked over and dead. At least, that's how he was in SCOTLAND, PA, and y'know, after seeing that, I went, "Now THAT I could play."

That said, all you people who find Lady Mac sympathetic... ummm, no, I still don't see it. The text has never supported it for me. She's an evil, power-mad rhymes-with-witch-but-isn't-actually-one-of-the-witches, and I can't wait to see her driven nuts by her own evil deeds. She's not a villain you love to hate, like Aaron or Iago or Richard, charismatic types who are fun to watch be evil... no, I just want to see her get what's coming to her. She's Richard, post-dead-princes. She's like Livia from "I, Claudius."

Although I still think it lacks the epic sweeping nature of Hamlet and Lear or the utterly visceral punch of Othello, I finally have *some* foothold now on Macky-B. We'll see if I get a chance to further explore it, or if my soul will be utterly choked by Chekhov before then.

Stupid Cherry Orchard crappy play whining Russians curse you Richards bah.

VIGIL Reminder

Taking a break from political discourse to post a reminder about VIGIL, since it's goin' up in a week and a half now. So...

VIGIL
By Morris Panych
A senior performance thesis by John Hefner
Starring Michelle Disney
Stage Managed by Melissa Pasterkiewicz
Directed by Mike Ridgaway

November 12th and 13th (that's a Friday and Saturday)
Tawes Theater, Washington College (www.washcoll.edu)

If you're sure you can come, best thing would be to make reservations, either with myself or the box office (more info as that becomes availible). I honestly don't know what kind of turnout to expect with this show, but I wanna make sure all my peeps make it in no matter what, of course.

Saturday would probably be the better night for people who wanna hang out afterwards, considering there won't really be much of a cast party to speak of, if you know what I mean.

Okay, we'll just forget about that, shall we?

Disregard my last post, all... three of you who read it. It's deleted, gone. Passions overtook me, and while I still knew what I was talking about, it didn't come out right and now it's a mess. So I'll scrap it to start over again later. Or not.

Even still, the point of that post was just to not let anger and bitterness completely overtake you. That's all. No matter who wins, we're gonna have to deal with one half of the country being very, very upset. So yeah, less bitching from everyone concerned, more actually... doing something productive.

Shit. I'm just fucking exhausted at this point. pokeyburro, I hope my response to your objection made sense. I wouldn't mind further discussing poltics with you on a somewhat more private forum, since I think you and I have much in common.