by Sarah Morgan on April 23, 2010
I’m obsessed with Such Tweet Sorrow. It couldn’t be otherwise. Come on. It’s a digital production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. If you added cute shoes you’d have everything good in life.
The tweaks are good – 16-year-old Juliet’s mom died 10 years ago in a crash from which Romeo’s dad, who she may-or-may-not have been cheating with, survived. Juliet and Tybalt have a stepmother they loathe and a big sister, Jess, who they nickname “Nursey”. Laurence (last name Friar) is the local hippie barista. The local shit-stirrer, Jago, provides omniscient narration.
It’s inspired work from the RSC and I’m head over heels for it. Nothing surprising there.
What’s really gets me is that it’s real-time and un-on-demand-able – and that is so oldschool it’s groundbreaking.
In tracking this, I’m watching digital media usher in a Renaissance of event entertainment. Liveblogging and livetweeting are the new “appointment television” (~1988) and “must-see-TV” (1993) – and they’re just as captivating. I’m loving it.
If you want to check it out, in addition to the website, I’ve made my own list where I’m watching the story unfold. (Some of the smaller characters aren’t in the website stream.) Find it here.
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by Sarah Morgan on July 12, 2009
This summer is gorgeous, but over this weekend my mind kept going to this past winter. And so, this, by Ogden Nash. It runs like a jumprope rhyme (Trochees, that. And you thought that English Literature degree was for naught?) but the bittersweet comes out the more for it.
The year is half gone, and so is the summer. Are you making it matter?
The Return
Early is the evening,
Reluctant the dawn;
Once there was summer;
Sudden it was gone.
It fell like a leaf,
Whirled downstream.
Was there ever summer,
Or only a dream?
Was ever a world
That was not November?
Once there was summer,
And this I remember,
Cornflowers and daisies,
Buttercups and clover,
Black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne’s lace,
A wide green meadow,
And the bees booming over,
And a little laughing girl with the wind in her face.
Strident are the voices
And hard lights shine;
Feral are the faces;
Is one of them mine?
Something is lost now;
Tarnished the gleam;
Was there ever nobleness,
Or only a dream?
Yes, and it lingers,
Lost not yet;
Something remains
Till this I forget,
Cornflowers and clover,
Buttercups and daisies,
Black-eyed Susans under blue and white skies;
And the grass waist-high
Where the red cow grazes,
And a little laughing girl with faith in her eyes.
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