Iain Coleman wrote:
Less intensively-planned? Don't you believe it.
Umm... actually, I do believe it.
Well stop :-)
It's not a criticism, though. In fact, one of the things that draws me to B7 is that -- due to time/budget constraints -- it often comes closer to improvisation than to carefully-considered drama.
I don't think it does.
This is the source of
much of the show's character and energy, and is why I find it more interesting than, say, 'Babylon 5'.
The reason why B7 is more interesting than B5 is because it's much better. B5 does all the thinking for you. B7 lets the audience think:-)
- The nature of performed text. Even if we manage an entirely
unproblematic text, what the audience has access to is the
_performed_
text. All performance of a text is an act of textual interpretation (Hornby, 'Text into Performance').
To a degree. There are limits. If Darrow one day turned up and said,
"I
want to play the scene where I kill Pella in the style of an Indian bus
conductor." He would be told politely to "sod off". Why? Because it
would
not fit with the rest of the episode, or the series for that matter.
I don't know. It might have been an improvement. It would certainly have added a bit of colour to the 'Was Avon Mad?' debate.
Take it from me it would have been a disaster. I've seen Darrow's "Indian bus conductor", it's awful:-)
That's true. Shakespeare was a genius. It can be interpreted many ways because it is meant to be. But any interpretation will have to fit
with
the
rest of the play, and it will have to be a "truthful" interpretation.
If
I
were to say that in the above text extract the character is talking
about a
banana, you would quite rightly say, "What the bloody hell is she
talking
about?" Well, that's what's happening to B7.
As it happens, I'll be rehearsing 'Macbeth' tomorrow in a house which generally has a ready supply of bananas. If I get a chance, I'll try
doing
that soliloquy as though it was about a banana. I suspect it might work better than you imagine.
Oh, it'll work. But you'll very probably have to take the scene out of context. Also I dare you to do it on stage in front of an audience, or even suggest this as a serious possibility to the rest of the cast:-)
and the best
interpretations have an 'aha!' quality that comes from pulling previously disconnected elements together into a coherent whole.
That's true. But what if it is not a case of disconnected elements,
but
an
overlooked pattern?
I think we're using different words to mean the same thing.
Are we? Surely there is a difference between someone thinking up an explanation to explain a genuine mistake in production and someone putting elements together to expose a conscious, or sometimes unconscious, subtext put in by the author.
Iago is an immensely fascinating character. But if I told you that in
my
fanon, Iago was a tree, you'd say I was mad. You have to understand a
text
before you can send it up, or comment on it, or lampoon it. Most
people
on
this Lyst know nothing about B7 at all. Oh, they can quote the lines
and
remember the episode titles. But actually understand it? I see very
little
proof of that.
Oh dear, a rational email has now descended into name calling. A pity.
It's a statement of fact. A statement of fact cannot be insolent:-)
I think you are quite radically misunderstanding my point.
You think so?
Yup. I guess you could always provide your summary of what you thought my point was, if you were interested in demonstrating that you had in fact understood it all along.
Don't have to, you give a potted summary yourself, "It was shit acting".
It was shit acting, simple as that.
Oh dear, a rational email has now descended into name calling. A pity.
It has everything to do with that time slot. The emotional realism is
toned
down, because if it were played for real it would frighten its
audience
half to death.
If it had been played with the reality that Gareth brings to the last scene of 'Blake', that Michael Sheard brings to his death scene in 'Pyramids of Mars', or that Peter Davison brings to his whole four tormented episodes of 'Caves of Androzani', it would have been great.
Yes, but after the episode "Blake" there was an enormous public backlash that went on for months. Pyramids of Mars upset the "clean up TV campaigners" and "Caves of Andrazani" lead to Season 22 which was criticised for its violence and ended with the entire show being suspended for 18 months. When it returned it had been neutered.
Darrow is a fairly mannered actor anyway. He plays the scene
in a very stylised and mannered way. Both of them do. But if the
director
didn't want them to do that, she wouldn't have let it through. You do
say
that emotional realism is not an unusual thing in B7 so why is this
scene an
exception? Why wasn't Darrow getting direction?
First, a small point: while emotional realism is not unusual in B7, it is strongly correlated with particular performers.
It would be. And sometimes Darrow doesn't give a hundred percent. But when he wants to Darrow can be excellent.
To answer your main point: I don't know for sure, not having been on the studio floor for that day's shooting. It's easy to come up with possibilities: perhaps it was filmed last thing at night, perhaps the director was having to spend all her time getting the lighting right and couldn't spend much time on the actors... one could go on and on. For
what
it's worth, though, I think prevailing cultural attitudes at the BBC had
a
lot to do with it.
Thank you.
Another example. Look at Darrow's studio fight with Bayban. Not very
good,
is it? Now look at Darrow's fight with the Sarrans on that beach. Much better. You know why? They had more time and a stuntman was involved.
Don't
slag an actor off just because he's doing what he's been told to do.
Is it all right with you if I criticise the actors' performance of a
scene
when I've seen it done vastly better by two totally miscast, entirely unprepared actors with no theatrical training?
No. They were trained by you, and you are quite obviously a very bright individual who has a clear grasp of the subject. If that were not the case you would not have even attempted to pull something off like that. Unless you were stupid of course. Which you most certainly are not. You're probably a pretty good actor as well :-)
Jenny
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Jenny Kaye