Day 2 of lone Mama and I must admit I'm glad to have my husband back. (As I type these words he tells me.. "You should write about me more, I'm awesome"! Soon my love, I'm sure I'll discuss you at great length on a day you annoy me.. be careful what you wish for! X)
Back to today. After a rather impressive bit of backwards driving, upon discovering I could not escape our parking area via our normal route - unless of course I was willing to take off the front of some else's car (I wanted to: Oh yes! But alas, my yellow mini is just too beautiful to waste on destroying some spotty teenagers red Nissan.) I managed to get on the road to in-laws even later than yesterday.
On top of this, boy had been a pickle for feeding (I fear more teeth are on the horizon!) And so knew I didn't want to be late as he'd soon be calling for food! Are all boys that fussy about boobs?.. Actually, don't answer that.
Thankfully, M-I-L was waiting cheerily to take boy from my flinging arms the moment I arrived and I still managed to scrape into work on time! God bless grandparents. A whirlwind of lessons later and I found myself leading the first rehearsal of our latest school play.
So, we're doing the Merchant of Venice, right? Catch is - we've gone a bit Fawlty Towers here - we're not mentioning the Jews. I know, I know reader and drama aficionados alike: How can you possibly not mention the Jews in a play like MoV?! Well, as it turns out, quite easily. Which in itself makes me a little uncomfortable (It felt too easy to rip out all mention of an entire race considering much of the play depends on its presence in the plot!)
"So what are you doing instead?" I hear you call! Now there is the ingenious part! In modernising the setting. Bringing Portia's challenge and Antonio's blight into the contemporary, we can eradicate Shylock's segregation from society due to race. Instead, he is cast aside as the miserable old miser; out of touch with the young carefree hipsters of the world.
See, what with my newly emblazoned kindness to self and others policy I just couldn't stand the idea of a play which only focuses on some 400 year old stereotype of a race as justification for portraying them as cruel and deserving of their fate. I had to make that change for my own sanity (and that of SLT of course.. could you imagine the meeting to discuss what we're doing...
"So there's this Jew right."
"Right..."
"And he's completely slagged off by everyone because he's a Jew"
"Riiight..."
"And he lends his enemy a load of cash so he can entrap and murder him"
"Go on..."
"And is then told that because he's being an unreasonable Jew, he must convert to Christianity, give all his money to the daughter that betrayed him for another Christian and deal with it or die..."
"... you know we're a Catholic school right.")
So yeah - it got edited slightly. Same old story.. slightly different angle. We'll see how it pans out!
Back to today. After a rather impressive bit of backwards driving, upon discovering I could not escape our parking area via our normal route - unless of course I was willing to take off the front of some else's car (I wanted to: Oh yes! But alas, my yellow mini is just too beautiful to waste on destroying some spotty teenagers red Nissan.) I managed to get on the road to in-laws even later than yesterday.
On top of this, boy had been a pickle for feeding (I fear more teeth are on the horizon!) And so knew I didn't want to be late as he'd soon be calling for food! Are all boys that fussy about boobs?.. Actually, don't answer that.
Thankfully, M-I-L was waiting cheerily to take boy from my flinging arms the moment I arrived and I still managed to scrape into work on time! God bless grandparents. A whirlwind of lessons later and I found myself leading the first rehearsal of our latest school play.
So, we're doing the Merchant of Venice, right? Catch is - we've gone a bit Fawlty Towers here - we're not mentioning the Jews. I know, I know reader and drama aficionados alike: How can you possibly not mention the Jews in a play like MoV?! Well, as it turns out, quite easily. Which in itself makes me a little uncomfortable (It felt too easy to rip out all mention of an entire race considering much of the play depends on its presence in the plot!)
"So what are you doing instead?" I hear you call! Now there is the ingenious part! In modernising the setting. Bringing Portia's challenge and Antonio's blight into the contemporary, we can eradicate Shylock's segregation from society due to race. Instead, he is cast aside as the miserable old miser; out of touch with the young carefree hipsters of the world.
See, what with my newly emblazoned kindness to self and others policy I just couldn't stand the idea of a play which only focuses on some 400 year old stereotype of a race as justification for portraying them as cruel and deserving of their fate. I had to make that change for my own sanity (and that of SLT of course.. could you imagine the meeting to discuss what we're doing...
"So there's this Jew right."
"Right..."
"And he's completely slagged off by everyone because he's a Jew"
"Riiight..."
"And he lends his enemy a load of cash so he can entrap and murder him"
"Go on..."
"And is then told that because he's being an unreasonable Jew, he must convert to Christianity, give all his money to the daughter that betrayed him for another Christian and deal with it or die..."
"... you know we're a Catholic school right.")
So yeah - it got edited slightly. Same old story.. slightly different angle. We'll see how it pans out!
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