In the English Renaissance, there's a play about a man who sells his soul to the devil (Dr. Faustus), and an other about a vicious conqueror (Tamberlane the Great), and other plays involve vengeful princes, adulterous queens, and murderous Kings (Hamlet), or ambitious knights who become cruel, deceitful, murdering tyrants (MacBeth), or jealous soldiers who, incited to murder by envious lying subordinates, savagely throttle helpless women onstage (Othello).
These are regarded as the pinnacle of artistic achievement of all time. I don't bother to mention lesser but not inconsiderable plays about cynical courtiers who sell out their sisters, murder their brothers, and betray their lords (Webster's The White Devil), or incestuous brothers who murder their lover-sisters ("Enter Giovanni, with Annabella's heart upon a knife" -- an actual stage direction) (Ford's Tis Pity She's a Whore). Or Donne's paeans to lust and adultery before he got religion.
Somewhat later there is Milton, but everyone agrees that his Satan is _much_ more appealing than his Jesus, much less his God. His contemporary and associate Marvell's greatest poem is an attempt to talk his (no doubt married) lover into putting out. Most of his other stuff is in that neighborhood too. Then we can go on to the subject matter of Italian Bel Canto opera. (Rape, murder, adultery, lust, cruelty . . . .)
Or shall we discuss the ethics of the ancients -- Homer, whose epics are odes to violence (the Illiad) and fraud and deceit (the Odessey) . . . . Or Aeschylus' Oresteia, with adultery, treachery, murder, and matricide as the themes. Or maybe we can talk about Ovid, which is mainly about adultery, mythological and actual.
Art isn't easy, as Stephen Sondheim says. It also isn't nice and respectable. Sondheim's greatest work is a sympathetic portrait of a barber who kills people while his girlfriend chops them into pies. (Sweeney Todd). . . .
But I can't say it better than the lead number from The Bandwagon:
That's Entertainment
Everything that happens in life Can happen in a show You can make 'em laugh You can make 'em cry Anything Anything can go....
The clown with his pants falling down Or the dance that's a dream of romance Or the scene where the villain is mean That's entertainment!
Nanette : The lights on the lady in tights
Oscar : Or the bride with the guy on the side
Jack : Or the ball where she gives him her all
All : That's entertainment!
Nanette : The plot and the hot simply teeming with sex
Oscar : A gay divorcee who is after her ex Fred : It could be Oedipus Rex
Jack : Where a chap kills his father And causes a lot of bother
Nanette : The clerk who is thrown out of work Oscar : By the boss who is thrown for a loss Fred : By the skirt who is doing him dirt
All : The world is a stage, The stage is a world of entertainment. That's entertainment! That's entertainment!
The doubt while the jury is out Or the thrill when they're reading the will Or the chase for the man with the face That's entertainment!
Nanette : The dame who is known as the flame Jack : Of the king of an underworld ring
Oscar and Fred : He's an ape Who won't let her escape
All : That's entertainment!
It might be a fight like you see on the screen A swain getting slain for the love of a queen Some great Shakespearean scene Where a ghost and a prince meet And everyone ends in mincemeat.
The gag may be waving the flag
That began with a mystical hand
Hip hooray!
The American way
The world is a stage,
The stage is a world of entertainment
> John Adams wrote:
>
> > > >
> > I've never seen _The Sopranos_, but I did read an
> explication of the
> > episode where Soprano takes his daughter off to
> college which argued
> > that the episode was slanted in such a way as to
> make Soprano seem
> > like a decent guy. It was a convincing argument
> and, even if I did
> > have cable, I don't think I'd care to watch the
> show, even aside from
> > the violence.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > John A
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> > .
> >
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
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