Oedipa, mia

[Dave Monroe]

Hm ... 

"The men inside the auction room wore black mohair and
had pale, cruel faces." (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p.
183) 

Cf. Ezra Pound ... 

"In the Station of the Metro" (1913) 

The apparition of these faces in the crowd: 
Petals on a wet, black bough 

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/pound3.html


And recall ... 

"White faces, like diseased blooms, bobbed along in 
the dark" (V., Ch. 9, Sec. i, p. 244) 

Hm ... 

--- Mutualcode at aol.com wrote: 
> 
> This Chick spells trouble for the men in the story, 
> except those directly connected with T, which we 
> don't really get to see, except perhaps at the end- 
> those chaps with the pale cruel faces in the black 
> mohair sweaters? It was Oedipa who had donned the 
> black sweater early on, some sort of correlation? 
> Maybe Oedipa is about to put her stamp on the T, or 
> assume her rightful place at the head of the table- 
> Chairwoman of the Board- rather than the other way 
> around. 

Oedipa's "shaggy black sweater" is @ p. 28, by the
way.  To continue ... 
  
> Speaking of gender, is it fair to assume that if 
> Wharfinger's play had been produced during the 
> period of it's alleged conception, all the roles, 
> including the female parts, would have been played 
> by men or boys, given the constraints of English 
> Secular Theater at that time? 

Fair in most cases, but do see ... 

Shapiro, Michael. "The Introduction of Actresses in 
   England: Delay or Defensiveness?"  Enacting Gender 
   on the English Renaissance Stage.  Ed. Viviana 
   Comensoli and Anne Russell.  Urbana: U of Illinois 
   P, 1998.  177-200. 

http://ws.bowiestate.edu/archives/1999/0404.html 

Not to mention ... 

Austern, Linda Phyllis. "'No Women Are Indeed': 
   The Boy Actor as Vocal Seductress in Late 
   Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century English 
   Drama."  Embodied Voices: Representing Female 
   Vocality in Western Culture.  Ed. Leslie C. Dunn 
   and Nancy A. Jones.  New York: Cambridge UP, 1994. 
   83-102. 

And, while I'm at it, here's a hell of set of links on
the English Renaissance ... 

http://www.qub.ac.uk/en/shuttle/eng-ren.html 

Reminds me, though, one of my favorite lines from one
of my favorite literary set pieces ever ... 

"Altogether, a most anti-clerical scene, perhaps
intended as a sop to the Puritans of the time (a
useless gesture since none of them ever went to plays,
regarding them for some reason as
immoral)." (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p. 69) 
  
> A bold director (trix?) back then might really have 
> been able to add to the chill, by actually having 
> all the masked and black-costumed trysterians played

> by females. Only their figures would belie them, but

> given the masking and anonymity, it would add to the

> mystery and sense of malignant uncertainty. 

"Suddenly, in lithe and terrible silence, with
dancers' grace, three figures, long-limbed, effeminate
..." (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p. 73) 

Maybe 'twas Twyla Tharp put the hit on Niccolo?  Very
modern dance here, at any rate ...

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