Review: Sappho in 9 Fragments
Aug. 21st, 2010 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenYou know what’s annoying? Only hearing about a play near the end of its run, so by the time you see it, it’s too late to recommend it to anyone else. This is the second time this has happened to me, and both times it’s been a one-actor performance written and performed by Jane Montgomery Griffiths.
Then again, I can’t really offer a particularly coherent recommendation at this point. Jane was wonderful as a lecturer when I was studying Classics at Monash, blew me away when I saw her play Razing Hypatia last year, and this… this was even better. I really wish I could see it again, just to pick up all the subtle little references and themes in it… but, on the other hand, it was so emotionally draining I’m not sure I could see it again immediately. I really don’t know how she can maintain such a viscerally emotional performance night after night – she actually looks different when she switches between different character, and the way she switches between strong emotions with barely a moment of rest…
I was actually physically exhausted after the play, from leaning forward for almost two hours, completely unable to relax in my seat.
As with Hypatia, I think I need a little longer to mull over the play’s contents. I do think it was brilliant to link how Sappho’s own work focuses on longing and unfulfilled desires with the way that her work is today, nothing but incomplete fragments. As I said, I really wish I could see it again after having done more reading to see where Sappho’s own words were incorporated into the play; there were a few lines I recognised, but I’m sure there were a lot more fragments worked in.
As I said, coherent? No, I don’t think I can be. Wonderful play, incredible performance.
Then again, I can’t really offer a particularly coherent recommendation at this point. Jane was wonderful as a lecturer when I was studying Classics at Monash, blew me away when I saw her play Razing Hypatia last year, and this… this was even better. I really wish I could see it again, just to pick up all the subtle little references and themes in it… but, on the other hand, it was so emotionally draining I’m not sure I could see it again immediately. I really don’t know how she can maintain such a viscerally emotional performance night after night – she actually looks different when she switches between different character, and the way she switches between strong emotions with barely a moment of rest…
I was actually physically exhausted after the play, from leaning forward for almost two hours, completely unable to relax in my seat.
As with Hypatia, I think I need a little longer to mull over the play’s contents. I do think it was brilliant to link how Sappho’s own work focuses on longing and unfulfilled desires with the way that her work is today, nothing but incomplete fragments. As I said, I really wish I could see it again after having done more reading to see where Sappho’s own words were incorporated into the play; there were a few lines I recognised, but I’m sure there were a lot more fragments worked in.
As I said, coherent? No, I don’t think I can be. Wonderful play, incredible performance.