Mooooooooooooooooother Cooooooooooooourage

Hi all. I figured I should update at least once in between the weekends, just to talk about the plays and various other shenanigans I'm getting up to.

Mother Courage was last night at the National Theatre, which is on the south bank of the Thames, right next to London Bridge. It's a Brecht play, and I'd heard some...things about Brecht before going in, so I was a little apprehensive. The play itself is about a woman in the 17th century who follows Swedish troops invading Poland and profits off the war. Throughout the play all three of her children die (don't worry about spoilers, the play informs you of this fact early on), and so it's Brecht on war and hopelessness and all that fun stuff. Mother Courage herself was played by Fiona Shaw, who also plays Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films. She did a good job, as did all the actors, but the play itself...was four hours long. And the thing I learned about Brecht is that he likes to go a lot of places but never get anywhere. Also, the play was four hours long. There were diatribes about how war is bad, but they were always awkwardly placed and heavy-handed. And boy was it a long play. Four hours. The play had moments of poignancy, and I don't bore easily, but overall I found it hard to be interested. It started at 7:30 and ended at midnight, so it was about four hours, if you believe it. The play is a musical (I don't know if Brecht intended that) featuring the band Duke Special. I hadn't heard of them, but they were pretty good. Still, it was an experience, and the tickets were free so what do I have to complain about, really? Oh, maybe the fact that it was four hours long. Four hours of meaningful storytelling is fine with me, but when its full of meaningless, throwaway characters and dialogue full of grand, overblown estimations of war and death with symbolism punching you in the face and vague, weirdly placed sexual innuendo that goes no where and does nothing except to make the audience smile awkwardly, unsure if they should laugh as characters with unpleasant upper bodies run around without shirts and with loose pants, but they only find out it all accomplishes nothing and then the end, when everyone dies and no one learns anything and yeah, that's war but if I have a war story I want a moral, I don't care if it's that war is great, I want growth, and though that can happen through death I'm not sure Brecht understands that death's impact causes growth, not death alone, but by the time I realize all this I'm looking at my watch hoping the tube will still be open because I've been watching this for FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS.

Sorry Petunia. You were very good if it's any consolation.

Today it rained, the first proper rain so far. I broke out the rain coat, and it was effective. I also looked like Lorenzo Lamas and women found me irresistable. Well, that part's just simply not true, but I like it.

Also, Patrick Swayze died and Kanye is a little rude. That is what happened in my world today. Night.