2023-07-03 02:00:37
Oscar Wilde, Uncle Oscar, an extravagant, provocative and narcissistic dandy, wrote the dramatic piece “Salome” in French in 1891, and dreamed of having the divine Sarah Bernhardt perform it in London. It might not be. The Lord Chamberlain, then in charge of supervising the programming of plays in England, censored it, relying on an old law that prohibited the appearance of biblical characters on stage. When it finally premiered, in Paris, at the beginning of 1896, the Irish playwright was already in Reading jail, sentenced to two years of hard labor for “gross indecency”, for homosexuality, for his unfortunate relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. This is how the Victorian double standards were spent.
In the play, Salome, princess of Judea, daughter of Herod Antipas, dances the dance of the seven veils and asks for the head of the prophet Iokanaan (John the Baptist, in the Bible), feeling spiteful. She wants it. She wants to kiss him even headless. “I will bite [tu boca] with my teeth, as if it were a ripe fruit”. Pure end-of-the-century decadence, Salomé constituted a mask, yet another, of Wilde; she also symbolized the fears of the new woman, the one who claimed her rights in the street, including suffrage, transformed en femme fatale devouradora de hombres by the imaginary of numerous artists.In Spain, by the way, it was premiered by Margarita Xirgu, and there was also trouble.
Waking up in the 19th century
On this groggy Sunday morning, one wonders if she just woke up in the 19th century or if she never left there. The same fear of change persists, of technology (now artificial intelligence) and of the outbreak of discontent generated by growing inequality. Acquired rights must continue to be fought hard. The only thing missing was the corset with whalebones on the beach, very tight, to the point of fainting.
This comes from the fact that the lord chamberlain of Vox has just canceled in Valdemorillo (Madrid) the performance of “Orlando”, a theatrical production inspired by the novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf (1928), which had been programmed by the previous government in the consistory (of the PP and Ciudadanos). The reason? The brand new Councilor for Culture, Victoria Amparo Gil Movellán, and her team allege a “lack of budget allocation.” The company that represents her, Teatro Defondo, denounces an ideological veto.
Orlando is a knight of the Elizabethan court who travels 400 years in time and discovers one fine day when he wakes up that he has become a woman. Full of ironic winks, “Orlando” goes far beyond sex and the trans issue; he supposes a reflection on the complexity of the human being, of the mystery of living. The only thing missing is that they now counterprogram with “Raza” or “El pequeño ruiseñor”.
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#Whos #Afraid #Virginia #Woolf
