2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Friday, April 17, 2009

Still Waiting

Waiting for Godot was absolutely extraordinary. Funny, poignant, cruel, hopeful and despairing in all the right ways. Goodman was an amazing Pozzo, just carrying that body around the stage. The scenes where he cannot sit down, and cannot rise from the ground were just mesmerizing. This was the Goodman from Barton Fink, and the West Wing, not Roseanne. All five actors were remarkable. I knew Nathan Lane, but not really John Irwin, though P and J recognised his face on the playbill from other things. When they took their curtain calls, I was waiting for that break in concentration, the gracious and relieved smiles that signalled the release of tension. But there was none. The little boy kept his nervous empty smile, and the others all remained just about blank in expression. Goodman, particularly, remained inscrutable, distant. A remarkable refusal to concede the theatricality of the event, to mark the boundaries between their play and our lives.

And my second weather pixie is now set for Central Park, NYC: I wish the name of the city would appear on the widget, but can't see how to program this.

3 comments:

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Oh, envy envy envy. I love John Goodman (the one from Barton Fink etc, as you say, although I loved him in Roseanne as well -- the awareness of his Roseanne persona gives extra depth to that other, bleaker presence) and would have loved to have seen this.

Glad to see there is less strain for you since P & J arrived. Your comment about the pressure of having to do everything for oneself was not a new idea to me, as you can imagine.

genevieve said...

oh WOW. He showed you the life of the mind, hey? I iz jealous too.

stray said...

Irwin of old:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXXntFQTmk&feature=channel_page