Cinderella 1929-2010

Today 'The Guardian' posted an obituary for Cinderella. Oh. Wait. No. It was an obituary for the voice of Cinderella, Ilene Woods. Or was it an obituary for Ilene herself. Well. The Guardian, weren't entirely sure. All they could really say was something about Cinderella helping the studio out in sales after the war.

Has it come to this? That there is a man sitting in the Guardian office called Brian Sibley who has lost his inner child, and it's partner magic. Poor Mr. Sibley, no doubt, thought he was onto comic gold, or at least, morbid witticism, or in vogue nonchalance in handing in his copy. Should someone tell him Cinderella can't die? Or that the little boy inside of him already has?

Live Theatre?

Those merry-but-poor souls that work in theatre are frequently, if not initally drawn to the 4000+ year old medium because of the one thing that sets it apart from Film/ Radio/ Written Word/ Fine Art and so forth. Theatre, or rather, the performing arts are live. Yes, Radio is live-ish .But Theatre is immediately live. It is this thrill factor that draws so many in, and is unique, and exploited as unique in many fine dramas, and forms of theatre.

I can be forgiven then for my double take, when I caught a Guardian headline telling me that 'Sir Derek Jacobi's King Lear to go LIVE' (at 300 Cinemas).

The Donmar on the back of the success of the NT, Royal Opera House and Co has decided to expand it's reach, and I shall buy a ticket (if I can't manage to get one for the actual show).

It might be that I am unemployed and have too much time to think this over, but isn't this 'live' business a classification error?

King Lear will be live, but only if you're sitting at the Donmar. If you're sitting in Holyhead, you're seeing something that is streamed live, but which still passes as a cinematic experience, rather than a live one? There is as much more life on a big screen from action that is pre-shot as there is from action that is streamed live, surely.

Has theatre given up? Already the audience attention span has dwindled. We are programmed to expect plot points every fifteen minutes thanks to television. Artistic programmes are funded by powerhouses like Shell. And while I'm sure the National isn't going to pander to Shell. Equally it is not going to stage an imaginative Melly Still response to the recent Gulf of Mexico leak, on the Olivier Stage. Self-censorship is perhaps more prevalent than the former patriarchial kind of the the Lord Chamberlain.

And if you need to be watching what you're saying or doing, even a fraction, then it's still a fraction wide off the mark from how you should be responding to the here and now in whatever way possible, even if it upsets how some suits feel they are being creative by throwing blood money at the National Theatre. Anywho.

Most young writers, sadly have to adopt many staples of TV drama if their play is going to be seriously considered for production. Keeping the cast to a minimum, and sticking to one location, time space, and age bracket cannot continue to be challenging to write, produce, or eventually watch. Yes. Limitations often force us to be more creative, but as far as I can see 'Look Back in Anger' was staged at the Royal Court in 1956, and then every year subsequently. The play is the same, only the ironing board is replaced with an iphone, cliff is a raging homosexual, Alison is an assertive second wave feminist, and Jimmy, in a postmodern twist is Jimi Mistry, playing himself. Soon to be screened at a cinema near you.

Of course, the fundamental differences between theatre and cinema continue. However if theatre is to retain some of what makes it special, I think it needs to be locked away with itself staring into a mirror so it can see what it has been producing. This naval gazing shouldn't be so hard for an industry that depends upon naval gazing as a keystone in it's structure: it's called acting.

Cinema then, is rarely interested in putting on the 3-d glasses and seeing itself as ugly. Why? Because it already feels ugly through and through. For all the stars on the Hollywood walk of fame, and living on Mulholland, the place sure uses up enough electricity to light up the darkness every evening.

The good news is that the Donmar is also expanding its touring with this production of King Lear, visiting more venues than with previous touring productions. This is the kind of live theatre, I have no ambiguous feelings about. And is a happy ending in these times of political and economic quicksand.

To Meat or not to Meat?

It is a milestone in my life, as I celebrate my second vegitanniversary. I'm thinking of having a party where everybody comes as their favourite vegetable, and we all share pot-luck vegetable dishes. It will be another thing I can strike off my list as I move towards creating, one day, my vegetopia.

And I really fancy having a rare steak to celebrate.

I'm not a strict vegetarian. I am in fact, a pescetarian. I eat fish. Not that much. But I do eat fish. So I'm not a vegetarian. Don't make me feel more guilty than I already am.

I'm quite a happy vegetarian. I never really bothered so much with meat when I did eat it. It was expensive, usually tasteless, and what I ask you is a Chicken Breast-stick. Can that possibly taste good, indeed can it actually, legally, be labelled meat? Probably not. But the level of blindness to what's good for you and not, as meat eaters is so acute that it's simply not worth asking the questions, bceause nobody is willing to see the answers.

And yet, I still feel like a having a rare steak.

But I'm waiting for the right time. I'm waiting until I am at a BBQ on the pacific (or caribbean) ocean, at sunset, dancing with a beautiful stranger, passing around the Vino and the Bong, and then finally, a delicioulsy prepared indigenous dish, prepared by the blind mama-makeba in a receipe handed down over generations.

And what's important here, is not that I'm eating 'meat'. It could be that Makeba's receipe is fish based. What's important is the history I'm writing myself into, and finding myself part of. More noble than the current history which is, we will be remembered as inhumane beak-rippers, genetic-f*ckers, Ecoli-munching,Cameron-voting demigods. So until my local Iceland, or PFC (always makes me think of PVC) in Hackney can enter into the tradition of substance, and meaning, I'm content to save my 1.99 towards that trip to St. Kitts, or Trinidad, where I know my Makeba miracle is waiting.

Social Networking, Not Working

Claire is leaving Facebook. So the message went. My response: who's Claire? Claire it turns out, is my friend, or was before she left facebook. I had forgotten about Claire. She had been lost in the quagmire of my other 300 odd facebook 'friends', which is by most standards a conservative number. Now she would be truly lost to the real world. Or is that found?

Veda updated her status to tell us that if we were reading this we had just survived her latest 'cull'. I crossed my legs anxiously. Darren rang me angry that I had not come to his party the night before. Did I know about it? 'I invited you on Facebook!' he said. I had some explaining to do.

I dragged myself away from the monitor and into the bathroom, where I took a good long look in the mildewed mirror. Something was rotten in the state of Bookmark(s). I had friends called Claire, I didn't know about, and friends called Veda who were weilding cyber machetes, warning us we were next, and implying we should be grateful for her mercy. I rang Darren back, 'I stopped responding to events about a year ago, there are simply too many invites. I don't need to go watch the pseudo-physical theatre version of The Frogs on at the Rosemary Branch, that this girl I could have met once, whose friend I may have slept with once (she says we did - I say we didn't), with these people who keep popping up as Recommended Friends. I live in London. I don't have time to see my 'real' friends'. When did Facebook become a substitute for living, rather than an accessory of it? Social Networking is making me less Social and it is Notworking for me.

Twitter, for me, represents the fundamental problem with much of today's disconnect. It is all output. No input. Everybody pretends to read. But mostly, we want to pretend we're being read. It's been called democratic. I call it 'blah'. Demi more and Achtung Kushner (whatever he's called) - and in this country Stephen Fry- are the high priests and priestesses, with that little blue bird emblazoned on their chalice. At every 'celebrity' death or natural disaster, increasingly lazy news researchers at Bloomberg go to Demi for her council. 'Too Bad' she tweets, 'LOL'. What a moron.

I think of Claire. She sounds brave. It's true that she will no longer be invited to parties, and miss the ongoing epic of Susan's singe-married-it's complicated-divorced status to Frank. But at least she isn't proud of her virtual diarrhea masquerading as opinion. She's probably out in the real world, meeting a real friend, and having a real good time. She doesn't need to be reminded of this on facebook, or to let any of us know about it. Maybe I should have gotten to know her, out there? Maybe there's still time?