Listening: Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright
Reading: Macbeth by William Shakespeare
News of the Day:
- Wrigley Field gets iced.
- Christmas deals...from the Depression.
- Pet chickens in Chicago. This wouldn't fly in Hong Kong.
- America's "red state army."
- Little Hitler wants a birthday cake too. (This one actually left me speechless.)
- Adultery cuts both ways, unless you're in South Korea.
Merlin concludes and my verdict - indifferent. I found nothing particularly captivating throughout the 13 episodes. The scripts were CW/WB grade, which I guess satisfied one demographic. I was reminded of Robin Hood in this regard, which is too bad because both offered a chance for me to indulge in a variety of national lore that we don't get in America. (Networks should take a cue from 1980s Disney Channel which produced "family entertainment" that still holds up.) The acting was adequate to less than impressive. Of the two leads, I preferred Colin Morgan (Merlin), maybe because Bradley James (Arthur) consistently emitted dumb jock vibes. He had his sympathetic moments (e.g. helping Mordred escape, pleading on behalf of Gwen's father) but the character remained largely unchanged from his initial appearance. And despite consistent assertions that Arthur would one day be a great king, what precisely did he do to warrant such praises? The plot may have moved merrily along, but the characters were static. (Morgana could have been an exception had Katie McGrath not overplayed the cold, bewitching stare and underplayed everything else.) I suppose the sets were a nice diversion (French castles, Welsh countryside) from your usual tv fare, but if BBC was going for mini-epic, more dynamic direction would have helped. The shots were unnecessarily flat, which kind of deflated the excitement of shooting in a truly grand castle (per the behind-the-scenes footage). Maybe it's time to admit that I'm either too old or need children to enjoy this one, but I'm a sucker so I'll probably try it again next season.
Today (or last Sunday) in music...Alexandra Burke won X Factor, which doesn't mean much to me as I eschew reality shows. (But copious thanks to them for giving us Leona Lewis, and I shame to say that I like Leon Jackson's new song; I am also a mellow sap.) Her cover of Hallelujah strikes me as heavy, but that could be because I've been listening to Rufus Wainwright's version. I like the melancholy that accompanies his lighter vocals.....but what do I know about music?
Finally in reading...I revisited Macbeth for the first time in 10 years, admittedly cheating with Sparknotes' No Fear Shakespeare. Two things encouraged this foray - my current taking to Richard Armitage, who was Macduff to James McAvoy's Macbeth in BBC's ShakespeaREtold, and more practically, tickets to the show on Sunday. I saw Scotland's Theatre Babel's staging in Hong Kong. Since I haven't been a regular theatre-goer (a matter of economics rather than a distaste for the arts), I can only say intriguing, enjoyable, with reservations. It was performed in a black box and I had a front row seat - because who doesn't want an intimate relationship with death and destruction? The intrigue came from the cozy setting, and the 40 swords dangling above the performance space, which I thought was used to mostly good effect. (It should be remembered that this was the weekend immediately following the knife swap incident in Vienna.) It was half-enjoyable because it moved at a clipped pace, having been whittled down to 90 minutes. But Macbeth is already a midgie - what else do you cut?! One might justify lobbing off 1/3 of Hamlet or King Lear but methinks Shakespeare was already quite efficient this go-around. In particular, I missed the generous interlude in Act IV between Macduff and Malcolm, which was present of course but not intact nor as grave. And I guess that's what I felt about the production overall, that it played like Macbeth Lite, which in the world of Shakespearean tragedies, seems counterintuitive.
I haven't chewed over the BBC remake, but briefly, it is a modern adaptation - in a 4 star restaurant specializing in offal delights. This will either turn you completely on or off, especially an early scene where pretty boy Macbeth plops a pig's head on the counter and quasi-caresses the thing before hacking it to delicious bits. "Joe" Macbeth is the sous chef for food celebrity Duncan (Vincent Regan). Chef Billy Banquo (Joseph Millson), maitre d' Ella Macbeth (Keeley Hawes), and head waiter Peter Macduff are also under dear Duncan's employ. That the cast is as beautiful as it is talented is, sadly, irrelevant. Here is another case of arranging pieces of plot to fit the original text; the elements are present but little else. One could say plenty about the celebrity food culture given our addiction to Food Network and its galaxy of rotund stars (minus Giada), but this is left wholly unexplored. You could easily substitute a kitchen knife fight with a California Fitness gym battle (hmm......). So again, another stripped down Shakespeare. All this leads me back to the one place that would make my teachers proud - the original text.
