The Songs of Johnny Go

After years and years of searching and hoping, someone has FINALLY posted the entirety of Derek Jacobi in CYRANO DE BERGERAC (with the translation by Anthony Burgess of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE fame):



This just barely surpasses RICHARD II as my favorite Jacobi performance of all time. The balcony scene never fails to bring tears to my eyes once he gets to, "Oh GOD how I love you!" Furthermore, this is possibly my personal favorite ever production of CYRANO DE BERGERAC, above the Ferrer and Depardieu film versions and the lovely Geriant Wynn Davies stage version here in DC a few years back. Anyone seen the Kevin Klein version with Jennifer Garner?

I'm hoping to talk Henchgirl into cuddling around the laptop to watch this sometime. She fears it'll be too depressing, but I'm like, "No, no, it's a tragedy, granted, but one that sweeps the soul in grand dramatic swashbuckly flair! CYRANO isn't just depressing! It's magnificently depressing!"

Thanks to scarydavedc for finding this:

PULP FICTION, Shakespeare-style. A collaborative work in progress.

Vincent: And know'st thou what the French name cottage pie?
Julius: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
Vincent: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
Julius: What say they then, pray?
Vincent: Hachis Parmentier.
Julius: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
Vincent: Cream is but cream, only they say la crème.
Julius: What do they name black pudding?
Vincent: I know not;
I visited no inn where't could be bought.

Dave's right, someone needs to do this at Fringe. Surely there must be a Rude bold enough. Just imagine the poster.

I think it's still incomplete, though. Maybe not. I don't think anybody's done Walken's monologue with the watch., Found it! C'mon, folks, I know some of you out there who are already thinking about their own takes (and perhaps improvements over what's already been written)...

Back from the wedding. chickenhat was right: you can't plan a Hefner Monologue.

But I can write a new show, which I'll have to be doing as I have definitely made it into the 3rd Annual DC Capital Fringe Festival! Whee!

So the question is, what new show to write? I was considering HOW HEFNERIAN, which would be mainly a whole show about dating woes and hi-larity, including the "I like your butthole" girl, my adventure meeting Emm Gryner, and my running theme of lesbians. But unless I come up with a bigger idea, just doing this as a one-man show would be... well, it'd just read as "more of the same." I have an idea of how this could work with an on-stage pianist singer to sort of be my chorus/Vonda Shepherd... but unless I can get that person, I'm not sure if this will work.

I'm closer leaning towards SON OF THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES, which would be the show about my family: my alcoholic father's life and death, my mother trying to turn me gay, my baseball legend grandfather, my obese grandmother, my feces-obsessed brother, his farting wife, and Gordon. It would be a rather different show in tone and style, letting me relax and just be a storyteller with humor rather than a showman.

Furthermore, it would allow me to open with something like, "Exactly one year ago, I premiered THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES right here at the DC Fringe Festival. Three weeks before that, my father died." I hesitated to write this show until enough time had passed from Dad's death, but they say it takes a full year to grieve, and that could be my way to achieve full circle in a meaningful way.

So I have two possible shows. But either way, I'd better get an idea settled up, so I can get some brand-new glamor shots from Roy Cox.

As for the original show, no way in hell am I going to slow down on that one. charisma18 told me the best thing I've heard all week, informing me that the long-running Renaissance Faire acts (Hack & Slash, etc) generally agree it takes about five years to perfect a show. That is exactly what I needed to hear at this point, when the show keeps getting better but not as good as it should be (in my perfectionist perspective).

Sir Laurence Olivier gets a lot of crap these days.

Whether it's how over-the-top he seems to our post-Method cinematic sensibilities, or just sour grapes over his choke-hold on British Shakespeare culture for, what, forty years (until Branagh came along with HENRY V, not to mention what was happening on stage at the time), "Olivier" is often a dirty word in dramatic circles. That's certainly been my impression.

Part of it is also that I was raised to believe Olivier was God. My father was agnostic at best, but he outright worshiped men like Mozart and Olivier, and no Hamlet could ever, ever, ever match up with the Olivier/Jean Simmons film version. "It was good, but it wasn't Olivier's! THAT annoying shrew is meant to be Ophelia? Jean Simmons was heartbreaking and tender!" In my father's mind, as well as British theatre for all those years, all other actors were living in the shadow of Laurence Olivier.

Olivier's HAMLET, upon recent viewing, is fascinating for how surprisingly underplayed it often is; this is the only time I've ever seen soliloquies performed as voice-overs, which you might think would be natural for transition to film. He's really not over-the-top, as many still accuse him of being, and the bits I've seen hold up today.

But then, I grew up to find that I was far more interested in the Branagh/American styles of Shakespeare performance. Of speaking the lines not as some grand, holy text, letting the language speak for itself, but rather like actual dialogue. I used to dream of studying classical acting in London, but now... I don't know. If for nothing else, do I really need to be bigger?

All that said... I still find myself defending Olivier.

I used to think that it was just left-over brainwashing from my father, coupled with sympathy of seeing a man--regarded by the world as the single greatest actor alive--watch helplessly as the world moved on, leaving him thoroughly respected while increasingly mocked in private, reduced to overact in B-movies (from directors terrified to give him direction*) and Kodak commercials.

Then, for the first time in ten years, I rewatched this:



(from a strictly screenwriting standpoint: it was a stroke of genius to incorporate Richard's speeches from HENRY VI PART III, some of which are on par with--and sometimes even surpass--those in his own play)

Now, from a modern standpoint, are those five minutes a daring new take on Shakespeare? Is it subversive? Is it saying anything particularly new or post-modern or ironic? No. It's pretty much as standard a Richard III as you can get.

That's just the thing. Watching this again... it's not just a standard; even today, it's the standard. There's a reason for that.

He can be allowed and even forgiven for being too big sometimes. After all... he was a giant.




And to think, I originally was going to post that video simply so I could post this:



Peter Sellers + The Beatles x RICHARD III ÷ Olivier = awesome.



*Until MARATHON MAN, where Olivier--ill and having gone without acting work for years--played a Nazi dentist. The director finally got up the courage to hint around telling Olivier to tone it down. Olivier was frankly grateful that someone was actually giving him direction again. His performance in MARATHON MAN is subsequently understated and nothing less than chilling