island
so this weekend i saw ada milea's 'island' at the theatre. it's ...sort of a musical but not really? i mean it is a play made out exclusively of songs, but i don't understand how/whether the concept of 'musical' translates into romanian theatrical experience. ada is a singer who writes her own songs and doing goofy voices/ cloaking seriosity and profundity in brutal dark comedy are longtime trademarks of hers. unfortunately all her best original work is in romanian (which is good for us but unhelpful for my non-romanian friends, sorry!).
i'll give you just some brief samples:
1. she says basically "if we had a different life/ we would waste it in a different way"
2. this starts off with a doozie swear-phrase, that goes on not being swearing after all. cheap-ish but effective. how do you translate these things?
she says "i'd put my....country/borders in my backpack, and that's it. i'd go settle down by another border, i'd take them out of my backpack and that's it." i mean duh.
so basically: ada milea speaks to me. not every day every way, but she does.
back when i was still in highschool, she was writing about the disillusionment of the after-university life, mocking romanian myths and symbols and historical perspective.then at some point she started working with (romanian surrealist poet/playwright) gellu naum's literature. she adapted a whole children's book about a penguin (apolodor) who leaves a circus and starts traveling the world to rejoin his fellow penguins at the pole. she got an albumful of songs out of it, and it's pretty good.
3. this song is about the US leg of the trip - specifically: apolodor meets a bandit from connecticut:
MAN THIS WAS A LONG INTRODUCTION!!!!
anyway, "the island" - the play me and my friends went to see - is another gellu naum-based play. it revolves around robinson crusoe being on the deserted island, and being very very alone. then a lot of other characters appear and fill the island in all sorts of absurdist ways: there's friday the slave, then there's a siren, a pirate, the pirate's wife that turns out to be robinson's mother...then the whole scottish clan of female relatives following her...then there are cannibals and bedouins and goats etc. the thing is, throughout, robinson is alone.
because everybody jokes about it, there's no time to stop and get depressed about this loneliness that is his existential...given. even the cannibals won't eat robinson because they've checked on him and know he lives alone - but everybody else is fair game.
the next clip i'm posting: an english version of 'island', somewhat different from the play: from what i gather, the stress here is more on the music as atmosphere than as narrative (duh), also it is necessarily sadder.
i love where he says "i'm alive i'm alive i'm alive/but i'm alone i'm alone i'm alone", as if he discovers and accepts loneliness as a permanent condition of his living:
and to counter this grief, here's a clip from the beginning of the play - not the show we actually saw, but a very close rendition. it's the equivalent: the beginning where robinson laments his solitude (singur! ~ alone)
and the english version for the one huge insight i had on that night:
robinson walks around the island being alone. the siren, who's in love with him, urges him to dream of her etc. he says ~ i love you, but i'm alone, and if i come back to you, you will be alone too. as if the aura of solitude is contagious. and it's true: there is more togetherness in some anticipations. the fact that people ARE islands in some ways is never clearer than when they have to interact directly.
my heart breaks again and again over this. i put this video up but the romanian version is so much better. i guess you just have to trust me on it.
c.
i'll give you just some brief samples:
1. she says basically "if we had a different life/ we would waste it in a different way"
2. this starts off with a doozie swear-phrase, that goes on not being swearing after all. cheap-ish but effective. how do you translate these things?
she says "i'd put my....country/borders in my backpack, and that's it. i'd go settle down by another border, i'd take them out of my backpack and that's it." i mean duh.
so basically: ada milea speaks to me. not every day every way, but she does.
back when i was still in highschool, she was writing about the disillusionment of the after-university life, mocking romanian myths and symbols and historical perspective.then at some point she started working with (romanian surrealist poet/playwright) gellu naum's literature. she adapted a whole children's book about a penguin (apolodor) who leaves a circus and starts traveling the world to rejoin his fellow penguins at the pole. she got an albumful of songs out of it, and it's pretty good.
3. this song is about the US leg of the trip - specifically: apolodor meets a bandit from connecticut:
MAN THIS WAS A LONG INTRODUCTION!!!!
anyway, "the island" - the play me and my friends went to see - is another gellu naum-based play. it revolves around robinson crusoe being on the deserted island, and being very very alone. then a lot of other characters appear and fill the island in all sorts of absurdist ways: there's friday the slave, then there's a siren, a pirate, the pirate's wife that turns out to be robinson's mother...then the whole scottish clan of female relatives following her...then there are cannibals and bedouins and goats etc. the thing is, throughout, robinson is alone.
because everybody jokes about it, there's no time to stop and get depressed about this loneliness that is his existential...given. even the cannibals won't eat robinson because they've checked on him and know he lives alone - but everybody else is fair game.
the next clip i'm posting: an english version of 'island', somewhat different from the play: from what i gather, the stress here is more on the music as atmosphere than as narrative (duh), also it is necessarily sadder.
i love where he says "i'm alive i'm alive i'm alive/but i'm alone i'm alone i'm alone", as if he discovers and accepts loneliness as a permanent condition of his living:
and to counter this grief, here's a clip from the beginning of the play - not the show we actually saw, but a very close rendition. it's the equivalent: the beginning where robinson laments his solitude (singur! ~ alone)
and the english version for the one huge insight i had on that night:
robinson walks around the island being alone. the siren, who's in love with him, urges him to dream of her etc. he says ~ i love you, but i'm alone, and if i come back to you, you will be alone too. as if the aura of solitude is contagious. and it's true: there is more togetherness in some anticipations. the fact that people ARE islands in some ways is never clearer than when they have to interact directly.
my heart breaks again and again over this. i put this video up but the romanian version is so much better. i guess you just have to trust me on it.
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