Reading Journal 9

• Reading Journal
• So the conclusion we came to for Waiting for Godot was that it was a play in search of both a playwright and a director. Which makes Tea and Sex and Shakespeare a playwright in search of a play. It has all the absurdity of Godot, but it also adds extreme creepiness. Brien has a wife, but he also has this young student, who he is tutoring and attempting to have relations with. So it's the absurdity of Godot but it also just makes you feel completely dirty as you read it. I think it would be extremely uncomfortable to see this performed. But I guess that's the goal: be absurd but also be creepy.
• Translations is about destroying the Irish culture by renaming all the places. I definitely could relate to this idea from my trip through northern Italy this summer. Every place in the Dolomites has three names, a German name, an Italian name, and a Laden name. It makes things confusing as a tourist trying to research stuff for the trip, but Translations really makes you feel the weight of this sort of thing.
• When Owen is incorrectly translating Lancey on purpose, it feels reminiscent of Shogun. I suppose this is our first encounter with a play really speaking to the loss of the Irish language. We saw it tangentially when we read "Our Irish Theatre," but here we get a drama where we can feel the importance of this issue.
• I think the implication is that Sarah is the murderer? But we get the classic Irish, or oppressed people generally, of not ratting out your neighbors, no matter their crimes, as we saw in Gaol Gate and Spreading the News, or more recently, The Field.
• Same Old Moon was similar to Tea and Sex in that it was also hard to read, in the sense that it was just upsetting. To be honest, it felt like the story of Amy Acton's mother. In Act I, Scene 3, "The Courtroom Scene," it seems like at first you had it all wrong, Desmond was going to rise to the occasion. But as it goes on, you see that no, you had it right, this guy is helpless: he's terrible. And then it gets worse and worse, and as it is getting worse and worse, you are still holding on to that opening scene where Bridie is so reverential to her late husband. It's traumatic, maybe not in the same way as Amy Acton, but I could not help but read it that way in light of this Ohio U.S. Senate race.
• And then Bailegangaire is just hard to read in the literal sense, not the figurative sense of Same Old Moon and Tea and Sex. This story throughout the play feels like I am reading Lucky's soliloquy. Perhaps Murphy wants us to feel how Mary and Dolly must feel, suffering through this impossible to follow story, which is, I guess, a laughing contest about misfortune? Which, ultimately, is all you can do when things are so bad?
• I guess I should not sell Bailegangaire short, it was also hard to read in the figurative sense as well. We got Dolly recounting her domestic abuse. Yes, each play this week was a tough read.
• I know we were supposed to look for issues of masculinity or how those issues affect the women. In that respect, were there any women who faired greatly in any of these four plays? I think it was bad news for all of them. Just a depressing week of plays. Hopefully election night goes well tonight.