PUGGY'S HILL

It's almost like you're a luddite or something, but ... I don't know what to call it. I feel so removed from most of what drives "culture" these days - when I see plays, people keep telling me what TV shows the actors have been in them - as if I'd seen them or I cared! Oddly, I was (ahem) driven to see Ewan Macgregor in Othello ... and found him ... oh, I don't know, it can't be me and him and the Pillow Book, so what was I expecting to see or feel with him onstage? (That said, Shakespeare with Patrick Stewart/Sir Ian is a different story, but those people can command a stage like nobody's business.) Part of me is glad because this is keeping theater going, but what kills me is that really good plays are being watered down to the level of TV talent. I really would enjoy seeing Chicago here, but with the stream of TV nobodies that keep populating the London production, why bother? I want a g**damned singing and dancing ACTOR on stage! Thus I am forced to see some show I've never heard of, "The Good Soul of Szechuan," in order to watch Jane Horrocks ...

Thanks for the Tosca tip, my husband is wild about that show and it looks like we'll be in Rome this autumn ... so there we shall go!