Tender Napalm
I am so exhausted I've burst into tears twice today. Inopportune moments, and nothing to do with songs or memories or nostalgia. Just tired, and scared. Ratty scared and jittery about the job.
Work this week has been heavy and hard and I've done next to no real work at all...
Tonight I came home, head full and the air fragrant with freesias and the sky low and somehow caressing, and sat on the balcony with N and a glass of Old Well and talked about "There's something in the water" (our homegrown soap to rival home and away) and the bigger things in life. I didn't feel at all like dressing up and going into town to meet JP and sit through a play. I wanted to file my nails and pull my knees up under the doona and read.
But I did get dressed up (not too much) and I did go into town and I parked Norm and I waited in the theatre for JP to emerge. A man approached me, and I couldn't help but smile - a habit I am unable to break - and he was quite close before he said something and I realised that his broad Australian accent was definitely not what i was waiting for. I said "you're not the man I'm waiting for". He laughed, we laughed, and then he said it was delightful to see the expectation in my face.
And then JP arrived. He is gorgeous. We crossed the road to the Bird and had wine and talked for an hour before the play started. There is something incredibly warm about him and it brought VC just that little bit closer.
And then the play. I had such high expectations after Mercury Fur. I so wanted to be moved. But I didn't like it. Lyn Gardner in the Guardian wrote of a melting tenderness in the play. If it was there, I missed it. I felt (and maybe I am getting old and prudish, though I doubt it) it was seeking shock value. Nudity at the end was gratuitious (nice boobs not withstanding) and the fine line between love and hate so easily crossed seemed far too stylised. I didn't connect with either character, and when their violent loss was revealed - or was it - I didn't feel emotionally engaged. Though interestingly, this is the third play I have seen recently that deals with the loss of a young child.
The language was rich, and perhaps would have been better read than seen. The director failed to carry the audience across that very important bridge between the page and the stage. I longed to be transported, to be moved, to be made angry or sad or at the very least happy... I wanted the love to win in the end but I don't think that it did.
As I drove home, Tchaikovsky blaring through the open window, the city sat at my collarbone and warmed my neck. I am home. JP said, as he introduced me to his east coast colleagues: "Anna is a Perthite. By choice"
By great good luck I say.
And now, to bed. Meeting Steph at quarter past sparrows for a run and then ...
And if on Friday it was the Ship Song that tore at the strings and burst memories through marrow, today it was the Bagman's Gambit, as I tried to block out the world and work on the application ...
How I long to hear you say
No, they'll never catch me now
No, they'll never catch me
No, they cannot catch me now
We will escape somehow
Somehow
Work this week has been heavy and hard and I've done next to no real work at all...
Tonight I came home, head full and the air fragrant with freesias and the sky low and somehow caressing, and sat on the balcony with N and a glass of Old Well and talked about "There's something in the water" (our homegrown soap to rival home and away) and the bigger things in life. I didn't feel at all like dressing up and going into town to meet JP and sit through a play. I wanted to file my nails and pull my knees up under the doona and read.
But I did get dressed up (not too much) and I did go into town and I parked Norm and I waited in the theatre for JP to emerge. A man approached me, and I couldn't help but smile - a habit I am unable to break - and he was quite close before he said something and I realised that his broad Australian accent was definitely not what i was waiting for. I said "you're not the man I'm waiting for". He laughed, we laughed, and then he said it was delightful to see the expectation in my face.
And then JP arrived. He is gorgeous. We crossed the road to the Bird and had wine and talked for an hour before the play started. There is something incredibly warm about him and it brought VC just that little bit closer.
And then the play. I had such high expectations after Mercury Fur. I so wanted to be moved. But I didn't like it. Lyn Gardner in the Guardian wrote of a melting tenderness in the play. If it was there, I missed it. I felt (and maybe I am getting old and prudish, though I doubt it) it was seeking shock value. Nudity at the end was gratuitious (nice boobs not withstanding) and the fine line between love and hate so easily crossed seemed far too stylised. I didn't connect with either character, and when their violent loss was revealed - or was it - I didn't feel emotionally engaged. Though interestingly, this is the third play I have seen recently that deals with the loss of a young child.
The language was rich, and perhaps would have been better read than seen. The director failed to carry the audience across that very important bridge between the page and the stage. I longed to be transported, to be moved, to be made angry or sad or at the very least happy... I wanted the love to win in the end but I don't think that it did.
As I drove home, Tchaikovsky blaring through the open window, the city sat at my collarbone and warmed my neck. I am home. JP said, as he introduced me to his east coast colleagues: "Anna is a Perthite. By choice"
By great good luck I say.
And now, to bed. Meeting Steph at quarter past sparrows for a run and then ...
And if on Friday it was the Ship Song that tore at the strings and burst memories through marrow, today it was the Bagman's Gambit, as I tried to block out the world and work on the application ...
How I long to hear you say
No, they'll never catch me now
No, they'll never catch me
No, they cannot catch me now
We will escape somehow
Somehow
posted by BanAnna at 8/30/2011 07:31:00 am
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