March 12, 2009
Trinity
Although it may not be evident from recent postings here, my time has not been taken up entirely by Watchmen. Later that same day, in fact -- the double-booking alluded to a few entries back -- we trundled off to see Canadian circus company 7 doigts de la main's satellite show Traces.
It may be an artifice, but you get the impression that this adoptive troupe pretty much put the show together themselves. Which is unfortunate, because the show is pants -- smug, meandering, padded out with irritating "street" posturing, displaying no hint of coherent artistic vision -- even though the performers are absolutely top notch. All five are highly personable, kick-ass acrobats, talented dancers with powerful stage presence. Brad Henderson stands out for his awesome Chinese pole and single wheel work, and Héloïse for holding up the distaff side (and for calling one of her fellows a cunt in front of the child-filled audience -- in French, of course), but they're all great. They deserve great success; just not with this irritating toss. On the other hand, the child-filled audience lapped it up, posturing and all, so what do I know?
Saturday was approximate labmate Damian's stag do, for which the headline activity was karting somewhere off in the shadow of the Thames barrier. I was, resolutely and with no shame, far and away the worst at this activity, and despite having quite enjoyed it in the past found myself absolutely hating the whole business at first, gripped with terror and a general sense of wanting to get the fuck away as soon as possible. Fortunately, by the time it actually became possible I was over that level of panic and persevered with only the slightest hint of reluctance. It was painful though, and rather chilly on the ungloved hands, and though I got steadily faster as I rediscovered what minimal courage I possess, I nevertheless racked up the slowest fastest lap times and never troubled second-to-last place.
Then, as is traditional, the focus moved to drinking, at which I can hold my own with the best. Damian being a denizen of the inner east himself, this activity was held at the Eagle, so when I bailed a few hours later it was all of 3 minutes walk home. Handy.
Work proceeds apace, and today I started hosting some CoMPLEX students who will be doing a short project -- akin to my own case essays, but retooled to include a practical element -- on the SICM. Heaven help them. It was, anyway, quite fun to take a couple of complete newbies through the experimental procedures on which my PhD is laughingly predicated -- but it did bring into sharp relief just how fucking baroque and frustrating and probably doomed to failure the whole process is.
And tonight we were at the Coliseum for their spiffy new production of Doctor Atomic, John Adams's nearly-new opera about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project in the last days and hours before the first New Mexico atom bomb test. Director Penny Woolcock, who made The Death of Klinghoffer, and designer Julian Crouch, who styled the ENO's gorgeous Satyagraha a couple of years back, make a decent fist of what is frankly pretty feeble base material, and I enjoyed the evening quite a lot. The history is powerful enough that even the best efforts of Adams and librettist Peter Sellars can't make it entirely dull. But, for all the forceful staging, it's a flabby and maundering piece. The scenes with Kitty Oppenheimer serve no purpose other than to drag things out into tedium, the Tewa Indians seem hopelessly tokenistic and the vast majority of the score is just background noodling of the drabbest kind. Despite some similarities of concern, it's a far cry from the earlier, much more enjoyable -- and altogether stranger -- Adams and Sellars collaboration Nixon in China.
Posted by matt at March 12, 2009 11:38 PM