Last night Peggy and I went downtown to the upper level of the Shakespeare Theater in Chicago. Very intimate. Probably 75 people in the whole thing. We saw Hecuba.
I’m not going to bore you with the plot. That’s what Wikepeida is for. Sufficient to say this is a story about the end of the Trojan wars, slavery, sacrifice, death. Helen of Troy, Brad Pitt’s butt.
Not really anything related to the dumb movie TROY. Actually Hecuba is pretty gory and depressing stuff. Oh, and, Mr. Euripides, I got the not so hidden meanings. Thank you.
So I’m waxing all eloquent about reading Euripides other great work to my wife, Oedipus Rex. Impressing my gir you know. Except, Euripides didn’t write Oedipus Rex. He wrote an Oedipus play. But not the Rex. That was Sophocles; Which I did read in High School I think.
But, apparently Euripides is pretty rich source material for plagiarists. I guess that was OK in Greekdom. Electra was a Euripides story. An opera came from that. I’ve seen it. Don’t remember it. Must have been boring or I was tired.
All in all Hecuba was wrenching. Marsha Mason was OK. But we have tremendously talented classical actors and actresses in Chicagoland. She had a hard time standing above the others. Nothing taken away from her, but her lead in this play had more to do with star value and less with her ability.
I guess Ms Mason is married to Neil Simon. She was in Goodbye Girl. She has a book. She’s from New York City. I guess we second citiers (actually we are third after LA) are supposed to be impressed. I wasn’t.
There probably won’t be a movie made from this play. Unlike in Shakespeare stuff, there was 0 comic relief. We like to chuckle a little once in a while. At least I like to.
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