(no subject)

A late happy birthday to dlgood! Hope it was great!

(no subject)

One of the good things we did on my family Christmas get-together in Berkeley was to go over to San Raphael to see The Tempest. We all loved it, not just Mirren, but also the way Taymor handled Ariel and Caliban, the island, etc. But I was the only one of us who is familiar with the play, so can't appeal to any of them to discuss Ursula LeGuin's objections to Prospera (not Mirren's acting, but the whole concept of making a male figure female). I can agree that there are many parts that wouldn't do well with a gender-switch (I can imagine some various Othellos, but not a female one)--but I thought it was fine in this play. The only thing that bothered me was some of the familiar lines' being changed(Miranda can't say she's never seen a woman other than herself, for example.

Have any of you seen it? How'd you feel about the gender switch? And for that matter, why did we have to go to San Raphael to see it? I understand why it's not in SC, but expected it to be in some art theaters in major cities. Also not playing near anything in Chicago.