I was lucky enough to actually see a Checkhov play this semester. One of my girlfriend’s sister’s friends (what a tenuous link!) is in their second year of studying acting at NIDA and they put on a production of ‘Uncle Vanya’.  It was well acted and produced. You can see many similarities between ‘Uncle Vanya’ and the ‘Cherry Orchard’. Both portray the decline of the Russian upper orders; both portray a family in crisis and lives which in retrospect could have been better spent. Another similarity I noticed was that in both plays Checkhov shows the possibility of several romances, but nothing really comes of it. Uncle Vanya also has hilarious moments, but ultimately has a tragic ending. It’s really quite brilliant how he makes these brief moments of absurd comedy in a rather sad and moving drama.

And viewing the characters in the plays as a microcosm of Russia it’s amazing how prophetic Checkhov really was, when you consider that the Russian Revolution was just around the corner. 

This poem was in part inspired by reading the ‘Cherry Orchard’ and thinking about the Russian and French revolutions. Its pretty raw though.

Rich men leave us no recourse; 
we burn with feeling from the source

We buy our poison with your gold, 
our hearts are hot, but our freedom sold

Poverty and slavery are much the same, 
we want to be proud, but we’re filled with shame

You say the sky’s the limit, but really the limit’s the sky,

the world and what’s in it, is yours not mine

Because we all make choices right? That’s what you see.

I didn’t chose to be poor though, you wouldn’t chose to be me

But now our roles are switched; now you’re poor and ‘free’. 
See the sham - the lie you wove what bitter irony.

I thought i'd collate some of my comments because they were all over the place!



Maryanne's poem:
http://stoochy.livejournal.com/8127.html?thread=5311#t5311

Elise's mini-play
http://elisriture.livejournal.com/10380.html?thread=9356#t9356

Nicole's great observation's on Tolstoy
http://little-nikky-1.livejournal.com/10902.html?thread=8086#t8086

Oscar Wilde employs the best way of critiquing society, through humor! Nothing will hold a mainstream audiences attention like making fun of them. He attacks stuffy Victorianism using their own language and mocking their hypocrisy and values. I enjoyed reading “the picture of Dorian Grey” a few years ago. It is also in many ways an attack on the decadence of society at the time however it is much darker than his plays.

Dorian Grey is an incredibly handsome young man who gets a portrait made of himself. He pursues only pleasure in his life and still he retains his youth and good looks for some 25 years or so but his portrait, which he keeps in his attic, shows the slowly begins to show signs of his complete moral corruption.

It’s an interesting concept and the preface to Dorian Grey makes for a good read too. In the version of Dorian Grey I read there was contemporary criticism at the back. The book was heavily criticized at the time. I love the line in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ when Wilde has a dig at critics: Algy says “Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers”. This was in part a dig at the critics who labeled Dorian Grey as pornography. Dorian Grey was even used later at his trial to convict him of obscenity. The preface was added after the first edition was so heavily criticized as a justification. It’s interesting to note that though we can see that Wilde is actually criticizing his society, they believe it is him who is immoral. They thought he was a travesty and a danger to the youth. It’s interesting to think about how the middle and upper classes are always terrified of anyone capable of subverting the status quo. Some good examples are the early reactions to rock and roll in the 50s and 60s (as MG suggested) or the reaction to punk rock in the late 70s.
 

Marc wrote some very interesting comments about Heyward's piece "of day, of night" it can be found at http://marcghignone88.livejournal.com/4871.html

here's my comment:

</a></font></a>raj_richardson wrote:
Hi Marc!
I also found the way it all came together interesting and agree that its a good attempt at a new format. when you said...
"I think that in allowing multiple (key=more than one, not infinite) pathways, she is in a way, limiting the text and actually providing it with less audience plot control than say, a novel."

I totally agree, by attempting to address more possibilities, she limits the input of our imagination, and thus makes the text less immersive. I would rather imagine what the characters look like, or what the items in the closet sound like for that matter. also after studying psych i thought the plot was kind of stupid, we all have dreams, sometimes hundreds over a single night but we rarely remember any of them.

good luck in the finals!

Judith Wright’s main theme (in the small body of work of hers that I’ve studied) seems to be the relationship between humankind and nature. However my favourite poems by her are those dealing exclusively with human relationships. 

My two favourite Judith Wright poems are Age to Youth and Wedding Photograph, 1913. Both poems talk about young love and have a distinctively nostalgic tone. Age to Youth is, as the title suggests, a dialogue between someone with experience to someone who is inexperienced. The speaker tells the younger person that rather than listening to the old people who say that love often ends in sorrow, live for the moment because nothing is better or more wonderful than love and you are only young once. The final stanza really stuck with me:

            “that whatever we repent

                of the time that we live,

                it is never what we give-

                it is never that we love.”

 The poem has a sort of ‘carpe diem’ sentiment. It urges you not to hold back, to live life to the fullest because life is “withered tomorrow”. But it is a defense of youthful recklessness rather than an argument for it, because it is a little unnecessary to advise young people to ignore their elders and do silly things while they are in love, they will do that regardless.

In contrast to the hopeful and liberating tone which Age to Youth ends on, Wedding Photograph, 1913 ends a bitter note. In that poem Wright is looking at her parents’ wedding photograph. She never really knew her mother as she died young, and though she knew her father well she sees him in a new light in the photograph. They look so happy and sweet in the photo but she knows they will not have much time together. The poem is much darker than Age to Youth. Wright talks of her mother’s “second bridegroom, standing there invisible at her right hand” in the photo. She is referring to the specter of death waiting to take her. She ends the poem on the bitter, almost sarcastic line “The best of luck young darlings. Go on your honeymoon. Be happy always”.

My favourite Australian artwork was definitely Brett Whiteley's Alchemy. What an epic piece! As Michael said it contains the whole scope of human experience. You could stare at it for hours! but my favourite artwork which i saw for the first time on Thursday was "Bailed Up" by Tom Roberts.

It is a beautiful piece. But I like it even more because of the ideas behind it. As Michael said, he is ennobling the bush and the experiences of the early pioneers. 

He's also thumbing his nose at the British and others who look down upon the so called 'convict stain'. By making it a beautiful picture he's implying that living outside the law isn't necessarily something to be ashamed of, or at least that it is as worthy a consideration for a work of Art as say for example a still life painting of flowers.

I did some research on Roberts, and found out that some people consider him to have done for Australian painting what Lawson did for literature (http://ink.news.com.au/mercury/museum/roberts.htm) and you can definitely see that (considering as well his other works like “Shearing of the Rams” and “a Mountain Muster” for example,) he helped define a national “type” which was emerging: defiant, hard working, honest, big-hearted, rural people with a distrust for authority*.

*I feel like I should qualify that by saying the distrust of authority would have been evident from the many strikes which were taking place in Australia in the 1880s and from newspapers like the Bulletin, and that by defiant i mean not only to authority figures but also to a harsh environment.