the Gay Apocalypse, then a melancholy comedy

[sergebroom]

Yesterday, I got an email from a former co-worker, who had transfered to another group a few years ago. We had been keeping in touch, but it had been some time since our last exchange. He's doing well, still living in San Francisco, still married to the same man since Mayor Newsom allowed same-sex marriage. I said I was glad to hear they were still together, and asked if they were still working on the Gay Apocalypse that then-governor Schwrzenegger had warned us against.

Last night my wife and I watched Trevor Nunn's 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", in which a young man is sent on a mission by his master to convince another woman that she should marry him. Of course the woman falls in love with the young man. Who really is a young woman. Who's fallen in love with her master. Yes, it's a comedy, but it left me sad. Aguecheek is a twit, and Malvolio is a jerk, but I still didn't care for what was done to either of them.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Did you notice that Olivia never says a word after agreeing to marry the Duke? I think Shakespeare was Making A Social Comment.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Interesting. On the subject of the relationship between the sexes, my wife once saw a production of "Taming of the Shrew" where Katherina makes her speech about submitting to one's husband, after which she gives a big wink to the audience, as in "In a pig's eye!"

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I've always hated that play. She's so awesome, and then he makes her jump on her hat! Boo.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Never cared much for it either, for the same reason.

[pedanther]

I've never really cared for the Nunn version of "Twelfth Night", because it is so gloomy. It ends with an entirely extra-textual scene of someone walking away sadly in the rain! It's like Nunn didn't even realise it was meant to be a comedy.

That said, I find that I don't like many of Shakespeare's comedies even when the directors aren't trying to make them gloomy. There always seems to be somebody who has something awful happen to them that they didn't really deserve even if they were a jerk to start with, but none of the supposedly good characters let it take the shine off their happy ending.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Gloomy? Definitely. The sky was overcast most of the time, and pretty much everybody wore dark clothes. By far I preferred Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" although, like you said, Beckinsale's Hero was getting screwed thru no fault of hers, because her dumb boyfriend believe the snake. By the way, I get a kick out of knowing that the boyfriend is played by Robert Sean Leonard, who, when he was a teenager, worked in a play with Susan, our mutual friend.