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Unk develops wonderfully as the divine messengers he had once supposed himself to be, to the pig he actually was, to the unwitting first and only philosopher on Mars, with the realization that he wrote himself as a hero and became one. Rumfoord, on the other hand, still is the manipulative jerk, but perhaps he will have his heroic moment. For the time being, best to consider his appearances like Enterprise meddler Q.

It is a telling sign that the conspirators' assassination is alchemy gone wrong as gold is what first causes a rift between Brutus and Cassius, each measuring the other's affection through hot or cool impurities. Brutus must see his descent into villainy yet remains stoical with news of Portia and Cicero's deaths. Only when he comes face to ghostly face with his evil spirit does the Act Two phantasma come to its end.

As much as I try to avoid present-day realities in analysis of classic texts, it is worthwhile to point out how the theme of political elitism continues to play out from Antony and Octavius' time through Shakespeare's and into today, where "world-sharers" prick down laws to destroy lives (and ecosystems) after gaining people's trust through rousing speeches. Lepidus would now be a pipeline for bearing a nation's GDP.

In addition to being a hilarious example of rhetoric at its worst and best, depending upon how ambitious or honourable a speaker seems to be, there are echoes of earlier dialogue, such as Antony calling out how all Rome fall with Caesar, much like Cassius in Act One. Brutus makes his Bond-villian early exit, and the running scene is punctuated by the true cost of being literate when a poet's name matches a traitor's.

Since Casca's tip-off in Act one Scene Three concerning the alchemical transformation that will occur with Caesar's death (interestingly with Casca's being the first hand to unkindly cut the tyrant), I have been paying attention to the play between "base" and "noble" in the dialogue. Even the setting, Pompey's statue and the base deeds performed there, are elevated by avenging spirit called forth like dogs by Antony.

The authors continue a scholarly trend of plucking a phrase from Artaud's various corpora and explaining away all sorts of meaning, perhaps putting more thought into the selected phrase than Artaud originally did. The trouble comes with the violent image of regurgitating the pig s**t that all writing is. Meanwhile, I have less of an idea of what Artaud actually created. I'd like to know more about his Scientist play.

For such a highly-praised work of science fiction, it certainly takes it time getting things going: no sooner has the readers found out about Winston and his amazing travels, then we are treated to the backstory of Malachi's business started by his Gideon-reading father. Sure, he and Beatrice are on their way to Mars, but unless one of them somehow ends up being Unk, the story will soon collapse its own wavefunction.

Another brief flash of lightning as the portentous event prepares to take place: one of my favourite gags has the boy being sent off before he knows what his message might be, while Portia weighs her civic and uxorial duty whether to save the republic or support Brutus' cause. Surprise visit with the Soothsayer who does not even seem to know what he is warning Caesar about, only to befriend himself better and thrive?

Entering Sub-Saharan Western Africa, the troupe switches gears and picks up more creative and family members while losing the French film crew. Their various two-word shows are not doing so well, and The Conference of the Birds may be the one saving grace. Heilpern meets a boy who presence in the world rebukes so much of the struggles the actors to achieve the Zen-like sense of seishin, beyond mind and body.

Stranger things have happened throughout history, but a letter naming all the known assassins before the fateful meeting outside the Senate House seems like even Shakepseare himself stretches credulity for the sake of tidy amount of foreshadowing. But the bigger curiosity is why Artemidorus' running scene stands alone.

I remember reading how a Shakespeare scholar wrote about lightning scenes, and may have used scenes from Act Two of this play as example: that Brutus and Caesar should have similar misgivings, a wife pleading for spousal confidence and to take such different paths, illuminates their character in a plot that seems inevitable but has many turning points. What becomes of Calpurnia after the eight strike Caesar's spirit?

The doubt-filled conscience of Brutus emerges in this scene, as argued by Ellrodt, it is the first staged example of self-consciousness in English drama. Each interaction with his servant, visiting conspirators and his own wife become chopped up and troubled. Paradoxically he is clear-minded enough to know how their action must be perceived honourable, yet his pretend illness is answered in Trebonius's sudden health.

Some kind of a guy, this Winston Niles Rumfoord, that has the ability to travel between the Sun and Betelgeuse as a wavefunction, yet can only tell lies about what the future has in store for his wife Beatrice. Perhaps she would be better off with the constant oaf Malachi, breeding like farm animals on Mars. Surprising that the few moments Winston is present on Earth, the story fits in political-theological tangents.

One innovation for the play text is numbering off running scenes to suggest the five-act divisions was an editorial imposition rather than authorial structure. It fights for space on an already crowded page where numerous footnotes leave nothing to chance, and go out of their way to highlight every sexual innuendo. I would rather see more about the play's references to alchemy, perhaps in the scene-by-scene analysis?

The very modern feel of Webster's two best-known play are due to his willingness to experiment with the dramatic form: The White Devil takes on the pageantry of politics where the poor suffer gruesome betrayal while the powerful are granted promotion. The Duchess of Malfi at first glance shares this pessimistic view, yet elevates Antonio beyond the cruel ruling class yet his son is placed to go bad.

The New World seems plagued by Old World problems: the fact that every woman mentioned in the story so far gets called a whore, every man seems to be living out some violent fantasy and the native population, asides from Daniel's short-lived sister-in-law, are a ghostly presence ready to swoop in and slice off some scalps. Boone and his follower Hill should have been made president of pre-revolutionary United States.

As much as early modern Londoners, post-Gunpowder Plot, had to fear Catholics, very few plays would have gone beyond the stereotypical Machiavel to show how from the family unit to heads of state and church, one evil deed infects each person. Flaminio sides with a duke falling from favour and panders his sister to him, bringing about unfulfilling revenge. Vittoria and Bracciano find love and take leave of conscience.

Guil and Ros hold their own for the first half of the final act mulling on what brought them onto the boat and what it means to not-be on a boat. Musical players, a quiet Hamlet and invisible pirates (truly not-seen on the boat) soon join them on stage and a fatal course is revealed. While playing death for audiences may have made the Tragedians' career, cut short by offending Claudius, Ros and Guil die by not being.

The most remarkable thing about this play, rising above the light banter and deep reflections on mortality, is the situation Ros and Guil find themselves in: they cannot leave the stage or each other. Not that there is No Exit as the players and principal cast come and go with ease. Must be fitting punishment for the two gentlemen who walked out on the Tragedians mid-performance, them being trapped in a box.

The most remarkable thing about this play, rising above the light banter and deep reflections on mortality, is the situation Ros and Guil find themselves in: they cannot leave the stage or each other. Not that there is No Exit as the players and principal cast come and go with ease. Must be fitting punishment for the two gentlemen who walked out on the Tragedians mid-performance, them being trapped in a box.

The whole visit to Agades seems like a dream packed with Jungian imagery. Some of the otherworldly events belong in the JO part of Noh theatre's JOHAKYU, the parody of culture at the Independence Day celebration. But the real deal happens there, the HA moment, when Brook meets the Peulh and clues in to a universal language. The final Agades moment, a KYU that it is time to leave, has an empty field and famine nearby.

Quick wits love the back-and-forth of the dialogue (such as the game of questions) but slowing down the play to examine the existential issues faced by two actors who barely know what parts to play - the titular names aren't mentioned until the tragedians enter after ten or twelve minutes of coin-flipping dialogue - and only by Claudius and Gertrude's play text are they a little bit more certain of where's and why's.

An enticing study of the most modern of the Early Modern English playwrights, Goldberg argues that Webster shared the dissatisfaction with communal consciousness wary of Jacobean cronyism right at the start of corporate culture that has now overwhelmed the Western world. The White Devil presents a case against the ways those in power use the law to do more harm than it is of wrong-doers getting comeuppances.

Stoppard's love of Shakespeare is put in a blender to give audiences two versions of famous tragedies. Firstly, schoolchildren are awarded by Headmaster Dogg and then perform a fifteen minute Hamlet with encore. Cahoot the dog has living room players in the Scottish play during communist Czechoslovakia being bothered by the Inspector. Easy comes to save the day in both plays first unwittingly and then Wittgensteinly.

Recovery from a minor setback has Brook's team crossing the threshold as they enter the Sahara, Tamanrasset develops a fascination for Western shoes with Heilpern's show. Moving onwards, however, draws the cast and crew further apart. Brook threaten to pack it all in and send dissenters back to Paris if they were only sightseeing, not revealing how Monsieur le Préfet could have made the whole tour a non-playing trip.

The major claim of this book is that Webster was an aesthetic relativist, bringing to his dramatic arts what is so succinctly spoken by Hamlet as "nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Without a diary or collection of self-authored essays, present-day relativists must piece out his life story in fragments, many of which were co-authored play that have been lost probably due to London's fire.

On the one hand, applause for Stoppard's deluge of dialogue that makes special committee proceedings and a rhapsodic tour of the United States seem light and breezy. On the other hand, how much of this play is really about watching a secretary have items of clothes slowly removed while ministers ogle the Page-3 Girls and make lewd strewth sounds while seeming to uphold moral dignity. Somehow American expats are UKed.

My attempt to learn about Artaud's sense of virtual reality starts at the other end, with scholars writing almost as madly he did on a variety of topics. Weber begins promisingly by addressing VR but veers off into theatrical peripeteia. Butler and Scheer consider his poetry, prose and pictures, respectively, while conjuring up Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Husserl - nonplussed over more reading! - and hearing Van Gogh.

First performance was a rousing success, especially for the actors who were not expecting to play in the desert town of In Salah, but moving on to the big city of Tamanrasset proves that lightning doesn't always strike twice. Cast and crew take it in stride, not expecting to be the biggest thing everywhere they stop. Yoshi offers more of his backstory, how theatre people are the only honest tricksters that he trusts.

Guess you would have had to be there for this short play to make sense, and yet that is assuming that any sense is supposed to be made from this absurd attempt to recreate Magritte's artwork. How many plays would have played straight the cop-busting-in-accusingly storyline to make this pastiche familiar to the Lunch-hour Theatre Club-goers? At least Stoppard seems to have avoided an on-the-nose not-a-pipe visual gag.