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I listened to this recording.
- This play is so interesting as a theatrical experiment. The poor women's chorus is very lyrically powerful, but the decision to amalgamate the poor/women into a varied but nameless composite entity is--it's always gonna be what it is. Intrinsically a bit limiting and insulting, in a play about particular men's social power, choices, decisions. The only place the chorus's crumbles is, unfortunately, the ending, during which the polyphonic quality of the voices (at least in this recording) rendered key lines disappointingly unclear.
- What does it do to stagger the climax and feature an extended denouement?
- I think this is the most I've ever liked Eliot? (I realise that's not saying much, but.)
- The bit where the lords defend themselves for the murder is unexpectedly very funny.
- It’s fast Shakespeare dialogue shit, so it’s going to take me more than one listen to really engage with this.
- There’s some beautiful moments of language in this. Eliot’s thought is more earnest and above-board than usual, here. He lays out his calculations in a manner that invites you to follow and engage with the questions fairly--for once, he isn't dealing in modernist obscurantism.
- It’s very good at staging multiple points of view and at explicating the historical situation, in the end—for most of the play I was wondering, 'why DOES the king want him dead, again?' But that’s fairly evident in the end, even if Becket’s immediate provocations remain fragmentary. (They aren't, after all, as important as the core sin of no longer being biddable.)
- This play is so interesting as a theatrical experiment. The poor women's chorus is very lyrically powerful, but the decision to amalgamate the poor/women into a varied but nameless composite entity is--it's always gonna be what it is. Intrinsically a bit limiting and insulting, in a play about particular men's social power, choices, decisions. The only place the chorus's crumbles is, unfortunately, the ending, during which the polyphonic quality of the voices (at least in this recording) rendered key lines disappointingly unclear.
- What does it do to stagger the climax and feature an extended denouement?
- I think this is the most I've ever liked Eliot? (I realise that's not saying much, but.)
- The bit where the lords defend themselves for the murder is unexpectedly very funny.
- It’s fast Shakespeare dialogue shit, so it’s going to take me more than one listen to really engage with this.
- There’s some beautiful moments of language in this. Eliot’s thought is more earnest and above-board than usual, here. He lays out his calculations in a manner that invites you to follow and engage with the questions fairly--for once, he isn't dealing in modernist obscurantism.
- It’s very good at staging multiple points of view and at explicating the historical situation, in the end—for most of the play I was wondering, 'why DOES the king want him dead, again?' But that’s fairly evident in the end, even if Becket’s immediate provocations remain fragmentary. (They aren't, after all, as important as the core sin of no longer being biddable.)
