{"id":373,"date":"2012-01-03T13:36:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T11:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=373"},"modified":"2012-01-03T13:36:05","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T11:36:05","slug":"the-art-of-entertaining-egos-teatres-els-crims-de-lord-arthur-saville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/01\/03\/the-art-of-entertaining-egos-teatres-els-crims-de-lord-arthur-saville\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>THE ART OF ENTERTAINING: EGOS TEATRE\u2019S <em>ELS CRIMS DE LORD ARTHUR SAVILLE<\/em> <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This semester we\u2019re awarding our Victorian Literature students extra points for attending a performance of either Oscar Wilde\u2019s masterpiece <em>La import\u00e0ncia de ser Frank<\/em> (see related posting in October), or Egos Teatre\u2019s production of <em>Els crims de Lord Arthur Saville<\/em>, a musical based on Wilde\u2019s short story. Ironically, Wilde\u2019s classy and classic comedy was offered at the quite modest Teatre Gaud\u00ed whereas the musical is on at none other than the Sala Gran of the Teatre National de Catalunya. Yes, even more ironically, whereas the musical is subsidised with public money, Wilde\u2019s classic was on at a commercial theatre.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed myself enormously watching Egos\u2019 \u2018\u00e0 la Sondheim\u2019 musical version of Wilde\u2019s cruel tale. As far as I am concerned, if a little bit of my taxes has gone to subsidising their joint effort this is fine, for I got back much pleasure for the evening. I actually think Egos have a very nice product in their hands that can be easily exported elsewhere in Spanish translation. As happens, whenever I see something really enjoyable in Catalan in one of our local theatres, whether commercial or subsidised, I can\u2019t help thinking that either we\u2019re VERY lucky to get such excellent performance standards or, the alternative, there must be HUNDREDS of great companies all over the world that pass unnoticed except locally because the language they use is not English (French, German&#8230; Spanish??).<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, Egos\u2019 musical ends with a song that comments on how the company\u2019s only aim was offering a nice show and entertaining the audience. This chimed in very nicely with our last session with my Victorian class, as we discussed whether Wilde\u2019s theatre was meant to be artistic or \u2018only\u2019 for entertainment. Very obviously, Wilde wrote for money and for a commercial theatre patronised by the upper classes. He was no committed Ibsenite and I very much doubt that, despite <em>Salom\u00e9<\/em>, he would have followed the road of the Shavian theatre club and the cherished project for a national theatre. Shaw explained in his <em>The Quintessence of Ibsenism<\/em> that whereas a typical, conventional play consisted of beginning, development and denouement, an Ibsenian play ended with the discussion of a serious issue. If considered from that angle nothing Wilde wrote was particularly significant; I find it particularly hard to explain why <em>The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em> has survived so well until our days. It must be its irreverence and its avowed intention to be a \u2018trivial\u2019 comedy for \u2018serious\u2019 people.<\/p>\n<p>Shaw himself claims that a good play is that from which audiences take something home once the performance is over, meaning something apprehended intellectually, something learned \u2013 an idea, in short, or some kind of mental fulfilment. I didn\u2019t get any new ideas from <em>Els crims de Lord Arthur Saville<\/em> but I did get much pleasure and this was due to something quite easy to notice: each member of the company had done their best to fill in the play to the brim with comic touches. There was much hard work behind every song, every gesture and this is why they got their well deserved \u2018bravos.\u2019 It might not be the kind of art Ibsen et al had in mind for the theatre, but there\u2019s much to be said for the often neglected art of entertaining the audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This semester we\u2019re awarding our Victorian Literature students extra points for attending a performance of either Oscar Wilde\u2019s masterpiece La import\u00e0ncia de ser Frank (see related posting in October), or Egos Teatre\u2019s production of Els crims de Lord Arthur Saville, a musical based on Wilde\u2019s short story. Ironically, Wilde\u2019s classy and classic comedy was offered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}