Thank You, Rob

[poliphilo]

Rob Bryden the comedian was talking last night about going on stage unprepared and I suppose that's why I was dreaming I was due to play Othello in a few hours time and I hadn't bothered to learn the lines. 

Usually when I get these kind of dreams they're all about how I'm a vicar again and I can't find my place in the prayerbook.

So, thank you Rob.  Thank you for moving me on. If I have to choose between being dumbstruck at the altar and needing to improvise a major Shakespearian role I'll take the latter.  

If I've got to be anxious in my sleep let me at least be anxious about something cool. 

But there's no way of dodging the anxiety. Anxiety is a constant.  

In waking life as in dream.  

I'm not Woody Allen anxious-  not neurotic-  just continuously uncertain of my ability to cope.

I caught myself worrying yesterday about cooking tea. 

Cutting up a bit of chicken, warming it in some kind of sauce, fixing some rice-  the sort of task I perform every day- but I wasn't sure I could do it and I was procrastinating.

I live my life like this- worrying, dithering, feeling unable- only I don't normally bring it into full consciousness.

But it's not just me, is it- it's the human condition. The only people who don't feel this way are the psychopaths. 

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I think I'd actually choose the former - because if it's the latter? You've got a much more discerning audience out there waiting for your performance. ;) With the former, you could always wing it and go extemporaneous. Not so much with the latter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is true, of course. It's just that I'm so bored with churchy dreams. It's over twenty years since I quit being a priest and I'd really like my dreamlife to move on.

I don't think the audience for this production of Othello were in for much of a treat. I mean, it wasn't as if we'd done any rehearsing or anything...

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

The great thing is that you realise that we are all like this - constantly worried about whether we are going to be able to cope with simple things. It is probably how we continually estimate our position in the social hierarchy.

I was walking from the car park to the office this morning thinking "what if I slip over on these wet leaves and twist my ankle and put a hole in my tights and I don't have a spare pair and what would I DO???". I don't have enough self esteem to believe I can WALK, for goodness sake!

But why Othello?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"It is probably how we continually estimate our position in the social hierarchy." And it's probably why the psychopaths wind up running things- because they're fearless and supremely self-confident.

Why Othello? I don't really know. Unless it's because it's the Shakespearean role I'm least qualified to play.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

Here's something to cheer you up:
http://www.leagueoffriends.mcfcstudy.org.uk/TraditionalFood/Manchester.html

If the print is difficult to read in places (it is on my monitor, it might not be on yours), click and drag your mouse cursor over it to highlight it. Makes it easier.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

And this is being funded by Manchester City Football Club? How odd.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Funny ... it's nearly always a Shakespearean production with me .

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping it will be for me too in future.

Ailz is doing an Open University Shakespeare course next year. Maybe this will reinforce the trend.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I think it's the RSC, (in co-operation with the National, perhaps?) were planning to do ALL the plays this year ...now "Timon of Athens I might do without, but the opportunity to see plays I like but are rarely produced, such as "Cymbeline" and "Measure for Measure" would be very exciting to me ... and strangely, I've never seen a full production of "Hamlet" on stage, only acts 2 and 3, though of course, it's played regularly here.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's right. It's an RSC project.

Cymbeline is one of the texts we'll be studying- and one I'm particularly looking forward to.

I saw David Warner play Hamlet (as a scruffy student type) sometime in the late 60s.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I remember David Warner as Henry VI with Peggy Ashcrof as Queen Margaret many years ago in the landmark BBC productions of the Henry VI, Richard III plays about the Wars of the Roses called "The Hollow Crown" He was tremendously sad and pathetic, while Ashcroft's stuttering Margaret went from shy young woman to terrifying force of nature by the end. Theatre of that calibre could almost make me want to emigrate.

Have you been to the Globe yet?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I remember watching The Hollow Crown. It was seeing Warner as Henry VI that made me want to see his Hamlet. He was an amazing actor. I suppose he still is. I believe he "lost" most of the middle years of his career to some sort of nervous or mental breakdown.

I've seen the Globe but I've not been to a performance there. We don't get down to London all that often.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I loved him in "The Hollow Crown" and, early in his career, "Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment". That film has probably dated by now. It also had a showstopper performance by Irene Handl as Morgan's bolshie mum.
He also did a very amusing turn as Satan in "Time Bandits".