With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
January 20, 2008 - 12:43 p.m.
The other day I was talking to Lena and I told her how I never sleep late, that I am always up by 10 AM. So today I woke up at 10:45. That meant I missed almost all of John Platt‘s show. At least I’m now listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.. Yes I schedule my life around public radio shows.
OK get ready. I’m about to do that glowing-eye-thing I do when I get excited. Last night I saw Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘N’ Roll. In my last entry I wrote about what a big fan I was of Stoppard. I obviously went into the show with high expectations. I was not disappointed. Rock ‘N’ Roll was right up there among Stoppard’s best plays. Arcadia is still my favorite but I’d place it right along side Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the Real Thing. I don’t know where to begin talking the show. As most of you know me through our shared musical tastes that’s where I’ll start. This was a straight play with a soundtrack. Jan one of the two main characters is obsessed with music. When he returns to his native Czechoslovakia after the Russian Invasion in 1968 from England the only thing he brings with him is his record collection. Yes he is one of us. One of the themes of the play is the relationship between Rock and Roll and Revolution. Some of the music is played during the scene on Jan’s phonograph. Other are played between scenes with the song credits projected on a screen. Here’s the music list that is printed in a insert in the Playbill.
- “Golden Hair” Syd Barrrett
- “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” Bob Dylan
- “The Last Time” The Rolling Stones
- “It’s All Over Now” The Rolling Stones
- “The Universe Symphony and Melody” (R ‘n’ R edit) The Plastic People of the Universe
- “Venus in Furs” The Velvet Underground
- “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” The Doors
- “I’m waiting for the Man” The Velvet Underground
- “Astronomy Domine” Pink Floyd
- “Terrapin” Syd Barrett
- “Jugband Blues” Pink Floyd
- “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” The Rolling Stones
- “Chinatown Shuffle” The Grateful Dead
- “Welcome to the Machine” Pink Floyd
- “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” The Beach Boys
- “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For U2
- “Wish You Were Here” Pink Floyd
- “Give Peace A Chance” John Lennon
- “Bring It on Home to Me” John Lennon
- “Boys Don’t Cry” The Cure
- “Vera” Pink Floyd
- “You Got me Rockin’” The Rolling Stones
You might be wondering who The Plastic People of the Universe (track 5) are doing amidst this collection of Rock Icons. They were Rock Icons too, in Czechoslovakia. They were one of the only 15 people that listened to The Velvet Underground, all of which, as we know, started their own bands. I have never heard their music other than that one song in the show but I am now a fan. They actually sounded like VU. That’s not why I’m a fan. I’m a fan because of the effect they had on people. They not only inspired Stoppard to write this play the also inspired Vaclav Havel to write Charter 77. The Charter called on the Czech government to honor the international human rights Helsinki Agreement.
One theme of the show is the relationship between rock music and revolution. In one scene Jan is trying to get his dissident friend to sign a petition to get the Plastic People out of jail. His friend thinks that is frivolous. Jan explains why the government fears the PPU who it arrested and not the dissident friend. Oppressors love dissidents just like inquisitionors love heretics. It gives them somebody to fight. The PPU got them angry and afraid because they didn’t care. They didn’t even care enough to cut their hair. They aren’t even playing the same game. They aren’t heretics they are pagans! That’s my new slogan.
This is a hard show to write about. It is complicated. How many shows will analyze the transformation of a totalitarian regime, debate the meaning of consciousness, deal with the familial relationships, keep you laughing the whole time, and have a rock sound track?
The best way to tell you why the play is beyond great is to not discuss the play but its effect on me. My brain was racing the entire time. It made me think,. It made me laugh. It made me sing along to the music, it made me feel along with the characters. Yes amidst all the politics and philosophy it was also the story of a family, A British professor of philosophy, his Greek professor wife, his daughter, and granddaughter. Sure he is an unreconstructed Communist whose opinions everyone else ridicules but he is also a real person. They are all real people.
There are parts of a Stoppard play that I could recognize as his even if I couldn’t make out a word, just from the rhythm of the language. His characters don’t have conversations the have verbal tennis matches. They hit the topic back and forth, sometimes with an overhead smash, sometimes a lob, and other times a dink. They revel in language and ideas.
I am not sure who to recommend Stoppard to. The problem is that he obviously writes just for me and if anyone else likes his works is of no concert to him. Luckily enough other people do that his plays are financial successes and have won numerous awards. The play is only running to March 9, if you can possibly see it, you should.
One of the games I always play when I see a show is going through the How many have you seen portion of the Playbill and counting how many I’ve seen. I always feel like I never go to the theater anymore but I’ve seen 6 current productions in addition to Rock ‘N’ Roll.
- Hairspray
- Legally Blonde
- Rent
- Spamalot
- The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee
- Wicked
I’ve also seen the original production of A Chorus Line. Rock ‘N’ Roll is far and away my favorite.
I really should write about how I got to see the show. This was my Festivus Present from Carey. He has his costs of doing business but he’s a good friend.
I had a brilliant idea. Tom Stoppard and Stephen Sondheim should collaborate. They are just about the two wittiest people on earth. Nobody other than Stoppard could write a book to a musical that could live up to the standard of Sondheim’s songs and nobody else could write songs that could live up to Stoppard’s book. The only problem is that the audience would be permanently blinding from staring into all that brilliance.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile January 20, 2008
