The Bluestocking, vol 76: Irrational dislikes and palate-cleansing kittens
Happy Good Friday/Passover!
A short letter this week, as I'm writing one of those columns where there's no way to write it that won't get me into trouble with someone, and so requires extra diligence. Also, this week I spent seven hours in a theatre... hear the outcome on Saturday Review, tomorrow on Radio 4 at 7.15pm.
Helen
Irrational theatre dislikes
It’s not a dislike exactly, and it’s not irrational either, so maybe this doesn’t count, but: I get very distracted when there’s eating on stage, and even find it quite stressful at times, because I start thinking about how that performer has to eat that thing night after night, and maybe it was their favourite food two weeks ago at the start of the run but now they are just fucking sick of it, and then I start to worry about the waste – the volume of waste is one of the things I find most distressing in theatre – and how no one will want to finish off a half-eaten apple, or a stew that someone else has poked their fork into, so that food is just going into the bin, or at best compost, night after night, and sure, someone is eating, it reminds us they’re human – but do we need to see food going into someone’s mouth, and start worrying about whether it will give them indigestion, or they’re going to spend the rest of the show trying not to burp or fart, to recognise live humanity? (Maddy Costa)
Enjoyable Exeunt list of peeves. The play I saw this week had the title mentioned THREE times in the text. Come now. (Bonus piece: a New Yorker profile of director Marianne Elliott, as Angels in America comes to... America.)
Approximation of how relieved I felt to leave the theatre.
Harvey’s client, Blane McIlroy, was charged with the least serious count on the indictment, that of exposure which carries a maximum term of two years in prison. Yet the barrister was unquestionably the toughest in his cross-examination.
He questioned the woman on inconsistencies in her account of what McIlroy did. She had told the court he was naked when he entered the bedroom but told a doctor previously he came into the room and then lowered his trousers.
Explaining the inconsistency, the woman said she was still trying to process what had happened when she spoke to the doctor on the day of the rape. “You go into shutdown, it’s incredibly hard to state what happened until you’ve actually processed it.
Harvey asked, in suspicious tones, why the woman used the impersonal “you” in this statement. “You’ve said this before. It’s almost as if you’re repeating something you’ve read rather than your personal experience,” he suggested.
There are currently protests over the conduct of this trial, in which rugby players were acquitted of rape and the complainant was cross-examined by four defence barristers over EIGHT days. I read stuff like this and think: could I really urge any friend of mine in a similar situation to go to the police, knowing this could happen? Knowing that the defence will rest on calling her a fame-hungry slag, and she will be named on social media?
If you read nothing else, read the men's text messages to each other and see how they talk about women. I won't post them here because they will trip every office filter going. These men should take a long, hard look at themselves and their attitudes to women. They are damned from their own mouths as cowardly man-child misogynists, desperately currying favour with their banter squadron by saying ever more disgusting things. I'm glad to know so many wonderful men, but jeez-o, there are some scumbags out there.
Guest gif: palate-cleansing kittens needed
Quick links:
How the Please Please Me recording session unfolded, hour by hour. (A tip of the hat to Ian Leslie for this.)
Andrew Sullivan: America steps towards tyranny.
The best eye-roll I've ever seen.
Great cartoon: here it comes . . . .
See you next time!