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My head is full again, thoughts going round & round just under the point of articulation. I saw The Pillowman last night at ACT with Andy & Vanessa & Bert [I went on a whim, & I am SO GLAD I did--& honestly, I must echo Patrick & tell you to GO SEE IT, tonight or tomorrow, because it is incredible]. This morning I finished reading Atonement by Ian McEwan, & I wish that someone in my class had gone to the play, or that someone at the play had been reading Atonement because there are some fascinating similarities going on.
A lot of it is metafiction, or near-metafiction. Pillowman was about stories, in a broad sense; & the responsibility or lack of responsibility of the writer of stories. I went to the talk-back afterward, & though I didn't say anything then, by the time I got out of it Andy & I were talking non-stop, interrupting each other & finishing sentences in our eagerness to figure out what was going on, to strip away layers of confusion or to build up layers of certainty. The play was both stark and complex, which seems like it should be difficult, but made perfect sense, though it was within a world where sense was pretty much lacking. A woman mentioned at the talk-back that she found it very interesting that all three men in the room had been abused--which Andy & I ran with afterwards, such a compelling idea, but the more so looking at how they interacted with each other--Ariel, the physically abused one, whaling on people; Katurian, who I think had been figuring out his psychological abuse through his stories, ended up using words & humor & sarcasm to undercut the two detectives; & Tupolski, well, I couldn't quite figure him out--we never found out as much about him. His Chinese deaf boy story was important, though I'm still not entirely sure how. The relation of that to his detective work--how it never came out until Katurian pushed him: "How did he know he was deaf?"
& the humor! I think I might have laughed more here than the last comedy I went to, & this was one of the most disturbing & horrifying plays I have ever seen. The humor was such an integral part of it though--it would have been unbearable without it, but also, I think, impossible without it--not impossible to watch, just impossible to be. There's something inherent about the relation of the ridiculous to the horrific. The twists in stories--like the "Little Town on the River" story, where he reads the last line & I go, "ohhhh..." with an appreciatve smile even though the whole story leading up to it is about pain. The man's about to get tortured with electricity & the entire audience is laughing because of one hardly-sarcastic remark. After one line--which I can't remember, but it was, like the others, hilarity packed between hideousness--Vanessa leaned over & said to me, "it shouldn't be funny!" I know. It shouldn't be--but it has to be. Imagine if it wasn't--it would be so much worse. There's something healing about the humor, possibly.
Andy had a good word, when we were blathering on afterwards--validation. We thought that Katurian was writing these horrible stories, & reading them to Michel, as validation of what their parents had done. Not justification, not really, because it can't be justified--but validation, a sort of "look, Michel, I know what happened, we both know what happened, & we're not alone in that," kind of thing. Perhaps. Maybe that's a part of why he felt so betrayed when Michel says he killed the kids? Maybe. I don't know.
& There's so much more I want to write--about how it relates to Atonement with the metafiction & narrator responsibility elements & everything, but I'm already late to rehersal. I realize not a lot of this will make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the play, so...go see it. No really. It's worth it. Go.
A lot of it is metafiction, or near-metafiction. Pillowman was about stories, in a broad sense; & the responsibility or lack of responsibility of the writer of stories. I went to the talk-back afterward, & though I didn't say anything then, by the time I got out of it Andy & I were talking non-stop, interrupting each other & finishing sentences in our eagerness to figure out what was going on, to strip away layers of confusion or to build up layers of certainty. The play was both stark and complex, which seems like it should be difficult, but made perfect sense, though it was within a world where sense was pretty much lacking. A woman mentioned at the talk-back that she found it very interesting that all three men in the room had been abused--which Andy & I ran with afterwards, such a compelling idea, but the more so looking at how they interacted with each other--Ariel, the physically abused one, whaling on people; Katurian, who I think had been figuring out his psychological abuse through his stories, ended up using words & humor & sarcasm to undercut the two detectives; & Tupolski, well, I couldn't quite figure him out--we never found out as much about him. His Chinese deaf boy story was important, though I'm still not entirely sure how. The relation of that to his detective work--how it never came out until Katurian pushed him: "How did he know he was deaf?"
& the humor! I think I might have laughed more here than the last comedy I went to, & this was one of the most disturbing & horrifying plays I have ever seen. The humor was such an integral part of it though--it would have been unbearable without it, but also, I think, impossible without it--not impossible to watch, just impossible to be. There's something inherent about the relation of the ridiculous to the horrific. The twists in stories--like the "Little Town on the River" story, where he reads the last line & I go, "ohhhh..." with an appreciatve smile even though the whole story leading up to it is about pain. The man's about to get tortured with electricity & the entire audience is laughing because of one hardly-sarcastic remark. After one line--which I can't remember, but it was, like the others, hilarity packed between hideousness--Vanessa leaned over & said to me, "it shouldn't be funny!" I know. It shouldn't be--but it has to be. Imagine if it wasn't--it would be so much worse. There's something healing about the humor, possibly.
Andy had a good word, when we were blathering on afterwards--validation. We thought that Katurian was writing these horrible stories, & reading them to Michel, as validation of what their parents had done. Not justification, not really, because it can't be justified--but validation, a sort of "look, Michel, I know what happened, we both know what happened, & we're not alone in that," kind of thing. Perhaps. Maybe that's a part of why he felt so betrayed when Michel says he killed the kids? Maybe. I don't know.
& There's so much more I want to write--about how it relates to Atonement with the metafiction & narrator responsibility elements & everything, but I'm already late to rehersal. I realize not a lot of this will make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the play, so...go see it. No really. It's worth it. Go.
