They're not even a real country, anyway

[jethrien]

I've spent the last couple hours doing travel arrangements, the most recent of which are to Toronto. And now I cannot get the song "Blame Canada" out of my head. "It seems that everything has gone wrong since Canada came along..." Actually, nothing's wrong, I just can't get rid of the song...

In an unrelated topic, I thought I'd blather about this play we're in, "Night of January 16th". For starters, is that not one of the blandest, stupidest names for a play you've heard in a long time? It's about...the events of the night of January 16th. (Also, the early morning of January 17th.) Who'da thunk?

So it's Ayn Rand, whom I strongly dislike, and it turns out that she's a worse playwrite than she is a novelist. This is actually an interactive play - the jury is chosen from the audience, and they get to choose whether she's guilty or not and change the ending. Thing is, the ending after the verdict is only one line, so there's going to be a heck of an anti-climax. I guess at the time, the idea of interactive theater would have been so novel (this is from something like 1936), that they wouldn't have realized it was lame and gimmicky, and executed poorly.

Plus, it's supposed to be this riveting drama with conflicting testimony where the jury could go either way easily. But...it isn't. Spoilers follow, if you really care.






There's two possible interpretations of events, one in which everything fits together very neatly and one in which the defendent came up with the most hopelessly convoluted plot ever and left lots of loose ends. Really, it's fairly obvious that the defendent is guilty of many things - adultury, fraud, conspiracy, desecration of a body, larceny, forgery - but not the actual murder she was charged with. Her surviving accomplice is also guilty of these things, and is a gangster to boot - but also did not murder the guy in question.

My theory is that Ayn Rand wrote the victim and the defendent to be shocking to 1930s sensibilitiesvery deliberately. She sets it up so that the main character isn't actually guilty, but a bourgeoise audience would convict her anyway, so that the author can then feel superior to her audience and scorn them for choosing social conventions over trueness to character.

Tttthhhppt.

Anyway, I'm playing a handwriting expert. My character is really unnecessary and should probably have been cut. I exist so it looks like the police did something, but my testimony is inconclusive in a boring way, and my dialogue is really stiff and wooden. Oh well. Chuckro, on the other hand, is playing the worst bailiff ever. People are constantly getting into melodramatic fights, and yet he does nothing (because the author does not seem to realize what bailiffs are there for). At one point, someone rushes over from the audience, grabs the Bible, and swears himself in. Bailiff does nothing. Chuckro has decided his character's name is Les. Short for "Useless."

Comments

[kittyarrr.livejournal.com]

it turns out that she's a worse playwrite than she is a novelist

Oh dear god. Gag me with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I briefly considered spending my down-time (I'm sitting in front of the judge, in the audience, for the entire show) reading a copy of that or The Fountainhead. It's be a cute little in-joke and an explanation for my behavior as Worst. Baliff. Ever. I'm distracted, right? Of course, that means I'd have to acquire a copy of either book, and even worse, read it.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Well, you wouldn't actually read it. You could daydream or see how many times you can find the words the actors are saying on the page you're looking at or something.

But it would require giving money, presumably to the Rand Foundation, to acquire said book. And I'm rather resistant to that plan.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

If my old copy wasn't in Cleveland, I'd let you borrow it.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I've read The Fountainhead and Anthem, but it was in high school and I returned the copy issued to me. Thankfully.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Actually, I rather liked Anthem. It's the only one I've read, though.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I liked Anthem fine when I read it, if only because it's short and she leaves out the monologuing-on-objectivism that characterizes her later books. I haven't gone back to it, though, and I'm not sure what I'd think now, biased by the politics behind it and the legacy of libertarian internet idiots she's left behind.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a horrible way to die.

Also, I think I spelled "playwright" incorrectly. Yet, apparently I am too lazy to go back and fix it.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I <3 your icon.

[fairylane.livejournal.com]

I spent today making travel arrangements to Toronto, too! Although they were for myself, for spring break, so it wasn't particularly "work." But now I'm sure that song is going to get stuck in my head. At least Chuck doesn't sing it to you in German, like Dan does to me... :P