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I just watched the 5/16 episode of Theater Talk with Angela Lansbury. During the interview she was asked about her role as the mother, Queen of Diamonds, in the 1962 classic version of The Manchurian Candidate; in a follow up question she was asked if she had seen the remake and her opinion–she replied “yes” and “no.” Lansbury said the acting, etc., was great, but how can you have any interest when you already know what the “secret is?”

I had to laugh to myself because, being as ‘stuck’ as I am with Oedipus on the brain right now, that is sort of the crux of Oedipus: that everyone knows what the secret is (except the characters in the play) and the dramatic irony makes it all the more powerful.

In an article I just finished reading by John Belton, he remarks that the attitude, if you want to call it that, expressed by Ms. Lansbury, is precisely the modern problem, here Belton quotes Frederic Jameson, (“Reification” 132):

“Thus the detective novel, unlike Greek tragedy, is ‘read for the ending’–the bulk of the pages becoming sheer devalued means to an end–in this case, the solution–which is itself utterly insignificant.” In other words, withing the contemporary culture of mass consumption, narrative undergoes a process of materialization and reification which abstracts it from the Real, gives it an “unnaturality” (Jameson, “Reification” 132), and reduces it to the status of an instrument, rendering it dramatically different from earlier forms of popular culture, such as Greek tragedy, which were “organic expressions…of distinct social communities” (Jameson, “Reification” 134).

935

This made me think of cigarettes, which some cigarette companies characterized as nicotine delivery systems.

Thus, Belton writes:

Detective fiction…emerges as a much more mechanistic restructuring of the reading process whereby phenomena are reorganized into formulaic categories which reduce the complexity of experience to a series of delays, snares, equivocations, partial answers, suspended answers, and jamming actions.

935

Oedipus, by contrast, was meant to be “read” for its irony, for the “interplay of various levels of knowledge (that of the audience, that of Oedipus)” 934 etc. Not for the end in-and-of-itself.

There is much more that Belton has to say about the differences of epistemology between Sophocles’ way of knowing and the modern detective writer’s way of knowing. But delving into this would go to far astray (which I may have done already) from the main point that struck me as I watched Theater Talk this morning.

Reference

John Belton. Language, Oedipus, and Chinatown, MLN, 106(5), Comparative Literature (Dec, 1991), pp933-950

I went and saw the preview for Len Jenkin’s Dark Ride last night at The Liminis and it was a blast. The final mantra of the play “I’m not interested in philosophy. Just tell me how it ends,” is fitting considering so many of the characters have a philosophy to espouse, which each offers freely.

The list of characters is considerable and fittingly odd for the B-movie that the play emulates. Very like The Mummy, or The Wolfman, as strange and eclectic a collection of characters as you’re likely to see tramps across the stage: a jeweler, a thief, a general, an explorer/scientist, a writer and publisher of sublime publications, a translator, a former carnival owner turned line chef and his wife—and each of them is questing for something: love, sanity, a jewel, a way out.

I have become fascinated by Jenkin recently and have read Limbo Tales, Dark Ride, and My Uncle Sam. These are considered a trilogy of plays that Jenkin views a leading to a positive view of life (originating in the rather darkly humorous Limbo Tales). Jenkin explores theatrical space and how characters behave on stage in very innovative ways. For instance, this exchange:

THIEF:
I’m still reading the menu to see if I made a mistake…and this guy comes out of the kitchen wearing this white apron, and he slides into the seat across from me.

ED:
Hello, Slick.

THIEF:
He says.

ED:
Got a cigarette?

THIEF:
I give him one and he says

ED:
Thanks. You new here?

THIEF:
Then I just look at him, and he looks at me, and then he goes away.

And all of this reading like a Dashiell Hammett novel or something. But genres change fast in this play: alternating from detective fiction, to horror, to cheap romance in the wink of an eye–all done up in B-movie grandeur.

Jenkin’s play is perfect for convergence and they do it very well. Director Geoff Hoffman keeps the pace fast and tight, and I was very surprised about the difference between the reading time of this play and its run time. A large part of this has to do with the good performances, but most of it has to do with Hoffman’s pacing and sense of stage balance. Interpretations of Jenkin’s vague stage directions are taken full advantage of and Hoffman maximizes both energy and the dark comedic undertones of this play to create a mind-boggling spectacle. Interventions by ambient sound, use of video, off-stage interjections, volatile stage entrances and exits, and fantastic (periodic) stage tableaux make this a run worth seeing over and over, which I intend to do.