Well, and the news is very good indeed. I mean my personal news, of course, not any news of national or political import. My news is that I have been cast as the Duke of Buckingham in that punk Richard III<\/i> I’ve been hocking about, and that means that for the next few months this Tohu Bohu will (if all goes well and the creek don’t rise) feature reports from rehearsals and the whole process of putting on a show. And none of the political commentary that I used to do so much of.\n
Which is just as well, really, because, honestly: a spending freeze? What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck sense does that make? I don’t think I could write a blog note that said anything more coherent than that, and knowing that, I wouldn’t write anything at all, and then, you know, not so much blog any more.\n
So here we are on this Tohu Bohu, having become a books-and-theater-and-sometimes-music blog, more than a political rhetoric blog. Except, of course, that R3<\/i> is political rhetoric, and more than that, it’s political rhetoric about political rhetoric. And so much more. I really love this play.\n
For those of y’all who don’t know the play at all, or who are vaguely familiar but (very reasonably) can’t tell your Buckinghams from your Ratcliffes without a scorecard), Buckingham is a very good part indeed. The show is Richard’s, of course, and far more of a star piece than many of Shakespeare’s plays. But then I assumed I wouldn’t get that part—you don’t choose that play and go into auditions without having a pretty damned good idea who your Richard is, and it wasn’t me. Because, you know, they didn’t know me. Still, there are a bunch of very good parts in support of Richard: Clarence, who has one magnificent scene and then has the rest of the night off; Hastings, who is loyal and true and utterly, utterly hosed; Richmond, who is young and hopeful; Edward, who is old and dying and then has the rest of the night off; and even Catesby and Ratcliffe and Tyrell.\n
But Buckingham is Richard’s main partner in crime, and the betrayal of Buckingham immediately following the coronation is a major turning point in the play, as well as being a great scene with several famous lines (Richard’s, of course, not mine). It was Ralph Richardson in the Laurence Olivier; it was Jim Broadbent in the Ian McKellen. And it’s me in this one in April. During the audition, I wrote the words I want Buckingham<\/i> in my notes, and I got him.\n
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Which Your Humble Blogger can counterfeit the deep tragedian, speak and look back, and pry on every side, tremble and start at wagging of a straw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theeyater"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18989,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12743\/revisions\/18989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}