AtD: Lew's experience of grace

[alice wellintown]

As Hector hectors Zoyd, "you gonna die."   Ain't no magic liquid, no
earthly host gonna give you everlasting life. But,  Zoyd, in a dress,
has a plan; he gonna perform. Nobody came. / Father McKenzie wiping
the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave /
No one was saved.

What's the point? A comedy? A tragedy? A comictragedy?

And the colored boyz go, "How Bizaare, How Bizaare."

But once the big D and Absurdity are in the House, well, then Richie
Havens gonna sing, Freedom, Freedom, free at last, free at last....

cause Lord,  we ain't gotta carry dat weight.


Now we can get on with the living. Life is gonna end with Death and
all along the way itz gonna be Absurd.

Back to Sartre, Camus, and Oedipus too. And, maybe we'll toss in
Scooby-Doo for good measure.

once Absurdity is accepted, there is a freedom.
But then what's the plan for a meaningless life not even Scooby Doo
can have a clue to.
Like, yeah, like wow man, like "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"

This is when Camus starts, like Hamlet, talking about actors and
acting and Zoyd, though he doesn't know it, gets caught in the actor's
trap. That's one of the things the Tube is for. Hector too, he gonna
get Tubed.

Henry Adams never learned a damn thing and some folks think he didn't
have any fun either. Well, I bet he had lotz of fun.

But now I'm sick and have this horrible sneeze coming again.

A similar problem afflicts Swan Song, also one of the original plays.
In it, an aged actor (the marvelous Robert Hock) comes into a dark
stage after having napped through a theater party. His appearance
echoes that of the servant Firs at the end of The Cherry Orchard. An
old prompter appears, and the actor begins to lament the way the
theater stood between him and happiness. It’s a lugubrious and dark
piece, and although both actors are excellent, it feels too long
(especially after Chekhov introduces scenes from Shakespeare (Othello
and Lear).

http://www.offoffonline.com/archives.php?id=1840






On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 9:05 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:
> alice wellintown wrote:
>>
>> I can't quite follow the logic here. Is it that humans can not and
>> have never experienced grace? Or is it that humans cut off from grace
>> are tragic?
>
> The human condition is tragic. I know this because I read about Oedipus. Now
> I think that was a play in a culture which had some pretty heavy-duty ways
> to renew - gods all over the place and with a lot of planting and fertility
> activities. Some have even claimed to have experienced a catharsis by just
> seeing the play.
> What's the point? How can the audience be having a good time? It's a
> tragedy.
>
>
>
>