“At the Dr. Johnson House, James Marriott and I discussed the future of civilization. He worries that the decline of reading means the end of democracy.”
If you think about it, “mass literacy“ is a pretty low bar for democracy. My father was an attorney and a great reader all his life. In his later years he started to claim a Kallipolis of philosopher kings (cf Plato’s Republic) might be preferred to democracy. (He was unafraid of idiosyncratic opinions.)
My granddaughter is off to college this year. She has never been a reader, but on extended visits I always read to her for an hour or two every night. A couple of years ago she started sharing the reading, sometimes doing it all. She also solved before the ending the first Agatha Christie we read ~~ via pausing and peppering herself with questions!
Just in the last year she has started her own volition reading novels (decent ones!). Sometimes seeds do sprout!
So she arrived for maybe the last summer visit today and guess what she is reading‽ Pride and Prejudice! Meanwhile I’ve been rereading Gone With the Wind which I haven’t read since high school!
She also in the last year read The Goldfinch, and several John Green books. I have read none of those. My all-time favorite kids book is Charlotte‘s Web. I also read her probably the entirety of Roald Dahl kids books as well as a number of his later autobiographical stories, including (recommended) Boy. Among many other things we read. But this leap was pretty much hers alone.
I’ll have to ask her if she has continued to look up words she encounters that she doesn’t know the meaning of, which is something we would regularly do while reading. Also recommended!
I've noticed that standing ovations are now almost the default reaction in many London theatres, no matter how mediocre the production. I'm not exactly sure when this happened. It's very annoying
By the way, is it possible to access any of your previous lectures/book club sessions (both on your substack and the ones recorded with interintellect)? I'm a newcomer to your Substack and would love to be able to access past talks/lectures!
Not just London theatres, elsewhere too. Regardless of the quality of the production. And if you don’t join in get on your feet you can’t see the curtain call or lineup.
And there’s the rub. We’ve lost a way to recognize a superior performance and at the same time are forced to participate in the dumbing down if we want to watch the conductor single out members. It’s the equivalent of a participation trophy.
Interesting! I wonder why this has become so widespread. I feel like it happened within the last ten years. Is it the case that audiences have lost the ability to recognise the quality of a performance? Were audiences previously more discerning and have gradually become less so? Or is it a reflection of a wider cultural/societal change?
I have a horrendously hard time taking the end-of-democracy stuff seriously. Individuals will have the level of literacy they want and feel that they need. That may be much less than we wish they had, but so it is. More information than ever is readily available through oral and visual mediums, so it makes sense some people are investing less in literacy. Schools will need to push kids harder to acquire the basics, but this does not strike me as a civilization-ending difficulty.
Reading and parsing long texts does not give you magical powers to manipulate or control others. And in any case, many of us manage to be perfectly stupid while also reading quite a bit.
Reading is its own reward, of course, but aside from that, I do believe it is foundational for the ordinary person being able to understand and express complex ideas. One can have a dialogue with a book - not so with oral and visual media.
Absolutely true! But also, having spent most of my career as a working scientist... most complex ideas are actually pretty dumb and ordinary people are right to ignore them.
I'd assumed the microphones being referred to were generalised ones, rather than the specific ones for assisted listening devices which are, clearly, crucial for anyone with hearing problems.
I don’t really know, but I’ve attended fully miked performances where my wife benefitted and which, to my ears, seemed to be general mikes as well. We’ve never been to a miked performance which didn’t have that capability though, so I wonder if that use case exists.
I very much enjoyed the talk, and the venue was wonderful. Hugely stimulating, although the weather was against you (I was the English teacher who asked the second question)
a lovely companion: “I sat by the front door wafted by the clove-scented pinks, it is an idyll: et in Arcadia ego. I am so in love with the place please God I see another year.” Derek Jarman 2000 Smiling in slow motion: journals 1991-1994.
I'm an American journalist and a great admirer of your work--and with what you've said in your podcasts about Stoppard and his work. I'd like to talk your response to this production for a piece I'm writing. I find myself disagreeing with you, which is unsettling to me because I generally don't --so I fear I'm wrong!
I was quite sceptical about this revival when it was announced. The Old Vic said it would be in the round and Stoppard had always made clear that you wrote his plays with a proscenium arch in mind. Why, I thought, monkey around with the staging? For professional reasons I saw this production six times at the Old Vic and I've seen the transfer thrice--and I'm seeing it three more times. What I found to be the great strengths of the production remain and I'll discuss them below. First, though, I will say that I was, without exception, disappointed with the transfer's changes to the cast. The one that most diminished the play for me was the replacement of Fiona Button with Yolanda Kettle as Lady Croom, and the weaknesses of the latter revealed to me how important that role is. (Harriet Walker played the part in the original production at the National.) Lady Croom's wit is saturated with the hauteur of the high-born, which distinguishes it from the cerebral wit of Septimus, Nightingale, and Jarvis. Kettle is statuesque and regal, but she lacks the requisite off-handed grace that Button gave to the role and to her delivery. Kettle's icy intoning of the lines have robbed them of personality, and she didn't have the timing to trigger the laughs at the right moments, so some of her best lines are drowned out. So much verbal dexterity and comic timing are required to ensure that the joke lands on *both* 'But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper . . .' and on the payoff : 'is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.' Every time I've seen Kettle's performance she has failed that particular acid test--one that Button brilliantly, and, yes, seemingly off-handedly, passed every time I saw her. Having said this, to me, by far the weakest performance, (although less costly to the play) is Nikki Amuka-Bird's, because her Hannah overwhelmingly occupies the world of 2026.
As you know, Stoppard was sometimes criticised for being all brain and no heart, but the reason Arcadia is his most popular play is that it's so plainly both. For me, in this production Seamus Dillane continues to marry both attributes with singular sensitivity and nuance. The chemistry between his Septimus and the winsome Isis Hainworth's Thomasina is subtle, complex, and powerful. I find that Angus Cooper is a genius in rendering Valentine's plangency. Without commandeering the play, these three, with their polished and assured performances, are its heart in both senses of the word. I've listened to the recording of the acclaimed original production at the NT several times recently. I don't want to make this a contest--and I would certainly say that Nighy's Nightingale and Kendall's Hannah can't be beat and that a recording can't really compare to a stage performance. But for me, Dillane, Hainsworth, and Cooper surpass Sewell, Fielding, and West in their timing and in the layers of meaning that they convey from the text. That is, in the power and complexity of their performances that are in every case rooted in, but can't be defined by, extraordinary verbal intelligence. I really can't imagine that anyone could play Thomasina better than Hainsworth or Valentine better than Cooper. Dillane's performance, however, goes a step beyond. It isn't just worthy of Stoppard's writing--it has enormously enriched it. He has made me see the play as Septimus's tragedy in so many aspects. I don't think I've seen a performance of a modern play as good; certainly, I've never seen better.
PS--I do agree with you completely on the loathsome music/scene changes business and on standing ovations. Both have become execrable theatrical cliches (fwiw, I don't recall anything like a third of the house standing at the performances I saw--but I try my best to look away). I also agree re mics, but this is now all but a requirement on the West End for complicated commercial reasons. Still, absolutely, the practice must come to an end (I think that almost all every really good actors would agree).
Thank you for this comparison. I saw the production at the Old Vic (I loved it, but I've never seen a Stoppard production I didn't love - I've been particularly enjoying all the productions at the Hampstead Theatre). I agree with your comment about Lady Croom - she was *excellent* at the Old Vic. But it was definitely the chemistry between Hainsworth and Dillane that carried it for me. I'm sorry the west end transfer loses out in comparison, as I've been madly recommending it to everyone I know.
I would still *absolutely* recommend this production! It's true that the new actors in the roles of Bernard, Lady Croom, and Hannah are disappointing. But Dillane's, Hainsworth's, and Cooper's performances remain incandescent.
Fwiw, I'd certainly recommend Wife To James Whalen at the Jermyn Street Theatre. It's no Arcadia, but the play is excellent and the ensemble of actors are superb.
Can understand the use of microphones in musical theatre, where regular performances for a long run must strain the voice, but not otherwise. Actors used to be taught to project at drama school; has this gone out of fashion?
I wholeheartedly agree with you about standing ovations for poor or even average plays, and it's both a disservice and disrespectful to the excellent drama that really is worth this accolade. Yes, the cast have performed live for an audience, but that's their job, and there is nothing wrong with seated applause.
“At the Dr. Johnson House, James Marriott and I discussed the future of civilization. He worries that the decline of reading means the end of democracy.”
If you think about it, “mass literacy“ is a pretty low bar for democracy. My father was an attorney and a great reader all his life. In his later years he started to claim a Kallipolis of philosopher kings (cf Plato’s Republic) might be preferred to democracy. (He was unafraid of idiosyncratic opinions.)
My granddaughter is off to college this year. She has never been a reader, but on extended visits I always read to her for an hour or two every night. A couple of years ago she started sharing the reading, sometimes doing it all. She also solved before the ending the first Agatha Christie we read ~~ via pausing and peppering herself with questions!
Just in the last year she has started her own volition reading novels (decent ones!). Sometimes seeds do sprout!
So she arrived for maybe the last summer visit today and guess what she is reading‽ Pride and Prejudice! Meanwhile I’ve been rereading Gone With the Wind which I haven’t read since high school!
Excellent!
She also in the last year read The Goldfinch, and several John Green books. I have read none of those. My all-time favorite kids book is Charlotte‘s Web. I also read her probably the entirety of Roald Dahl kids books as well as a number of his later autobiographical stories, including (recommended) Boy. Among many other things we read. But this leap was pretty much hers alone.
I’ll have to ask her if she has continued to look up words she encounters that she doesn’t know the meaning of, which is something we would regularly do while reading. Also recommended!
I've noticed that standing ovations are now almost the default reaction in many London theatres, no matter how mediocre the production. I'm not exactly sure when this happened. It's very annoying
By the way, is it possible to access any of your previous lectures/book club sessions (both on your substack and the ones recorded with interintellect)? I'm a newcomer to your Substack and would love to be able to access past talks/lectures!
yes everything is available on the website
Not just London theatres, elsewhere too. Regardless of the quality of the production. And if you don’t join in get on your feet you can’t see the curtain call or lineup.
And there’s the rub. We’ve lost a way to recognize a superior performance and at the same time are forced to participate in the dumbing down if we want to watch the conductor single out members. It’s the equivalent of a participation trophy.
Interesting! I wonder why this has become so widespread. I feel like it happened within the last ten years. Is it the case that audiences have lost the ability to recognise the quality of a performance? Were audiences previously more discerning and have gradually become less so? Or is it a reflection of a wider cultural/societal change?
Same in live classical music. I think it’s just appreciation for real people performing for us. It’s humbling sometimes.
That's a nice way of thinking about it!
Yes! I could never read popular history after working an office and comparing the paperwork we created with what really happened. :)
I have a horrendously hard time taking the end-of-democracy stuff seriously. Individuals will have the level of literacy they want and feel that they need. That may be much less than we wish they had, but so it is. More information than ever is readily available through oral and visual mediums, so it makes sense some people are investing less in literacy. Schools will need to push kids harder to acquire the basics, but this does not strike me as a civilization-ending difficulty.
Reading and parsing long texts does not give you magical powers to manipulate or control others. And in any case, many of us manage to be perfectly stupid while also reading quite a bit.
Reading is its own reward, of course, but aside from that, I do believe it is foundational for the ordinary person being able to understand and express complex ideas. One can have a dialogue with a book - not so with oral and visual media.
Absolutely true! But also, having spent most of my career as a working scientist... most complex ideas are actually pretty dumb and ordinary people are right to ignore them.
Works the other way too. Many simplistic ideas turn out to be right.
Optimization, as they say, is a buzzsaw!
Good grief - microphones - is voice projection not taught at drama school any longer?
However, some of us with hearing problems benefit, particularly when the mikes are attached to one of those devices giving you subtitles.
I'd assumed the microphones being referred to were generalised ones, rather than the specific ones for assisted listening devices which are, clearly, crucial for anyone with hearing problems.
I don’t really know, but I’ve attended fully miked performances where my wife benefitted and which, to my ears, seemed to be general mikes as well. We’ve never been to a miked performance which didn’t have that capability though, so I wonder if that use case exists.
I very much enjoyed the talk, and the venue was wonderful. Hugely stimulating, although the weather was against you (I was the English teacher who asked the second question)
a lovely companion: “I sat by the front door wafted by the clove-scented pinks, it is an idyll: et in Arcadia ego. I am so in love with the place please God I see another year.” Derek Jarman 2000 Smiling in slow motion: journals 1991-1994.
Come be an American permanently, it's complicated but great.
I'm an American journalist and a great admirer of your work--and with what you've said in your podcasts about Stoppard and his work. I'd like to talk your response to this production for a piece I'm writing. I find myself disagreeing with you, which is unsettling to me because I generally don't --so I fear I'm wrong!
tell me more about your thoughts of the production
Well, OK.
I was quite sceptical about this revival when it was announced. The Old Vic said it would be in the round and Stoppard had always made clear that you wrote his plays with a proscenium arch in mind. Why, I thought, monkey around with the staging? For professional reasons I saw this production six times at the Old Vic and I've seen the transfer thrice--and I'm seeing it three more times. What I found to be the great strengths of the production remain and I'll discuss them below. First, though, I will say that I was, without exception, disappointed with the transfer's changes to the cast. The one that most diminished the play for me was the replacement of Fiona Button with Yolanda Kettle as Lady Croom, and the weaknesses of the latter revealed to me how important that role is. (Harriet Walker played the part in the original production at the National.) Lady Croom's wit is saturated with the hauteur of the high-born, which distinguishes it from the cerebral wit of Septimus, Nightingale, and Jarvis. Kettle is statuesque and regal, but she lacks the requisite off-handed grace that Button gave to the role and to her delivery. Kettle's icy intoning of the lines have robbed them of personality, and she didn't have the timing to trigger the laughs at the right moments, so some of her best lines are drowned out. So much verbal dexterity and comic timing are required to ensure that the joke lands on *both* 'But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper . . .' and on the payoff : 'is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.' Every time I've seen Kettle's performance she has failed that particular acid test--one that Button brilliantly, and, yes, seemingly off-handedly, passed every time I saw her. Having said this, to me, by far the weakest performance, (although less costly to the play) is Nikki Amuka-Bird's, because her Hannah overwhelmingly occupies the world of 2026.
As you know, Stoppard was sometimes criticised for being all brain and no heart, but the reason Arcadia is his most popular play is that it's so plainly both. For me, in this production Seamus Dillane continues to marry both attributes with singular sensitivity and nuance. The chemistry between his Septimus and the winsome Isis Hainworth's Thomasina is subtle, complex, and powerful. I find that Angus Cooper is a genius in rendering Valentine's plangency. Without commandeering the play, these three, with their polished and assured performances, are its heart in both senses of the word. I've listened to the recording of the acclaimed original production at the NT several times recently. I don't want to make this a contest--and I would certainly say that Nighy's Nightingale and Kendall's Hannah can't be beat and that a recording can't really compare to a stage performance. But for me, Dillane, Hainsworth, and Cooper surpass Sewell, Fielding, and West in their timing and in the layers of meaning that they convey from the text. That is, in the power and complexity of their performances that are in every case rooted in, but can't be defined by, extraordinary verbal intelligence. I really can't imagine that anyone could play Thomasina better than Hainsworth or Valentine better than Cooper. Dillane's performance, however, goes a step beyond. It isn't just worthy of Stoppard's writing--it has enormously enriched it. He has made me see the play as Septimus's tragedy in so many aspects. I don't think I've seen a performance of a modern play as good; certainly, I've never seen better.
PS--I do agree with you completely on the loathsome music/scene changes business and on standing ovations. Both have become execrable theatrical cliches (fwiw, I don't recall anything like a third of the house standing at the performances I saw--but I try my best to look away). I also agree re mics, but this is now all but a requirement on the West End for complicated commercial reasons. Still, absolutely, the practice must come to an end (I think that almost all every really good actors would agree).
Thank you for this comparison. I saw the production at the Old Vic (I loved it, but I've never seen a Stoppard production I didn't love - I've been particularly enjoying all the productions at the Hampstead Theatre). I agree with your comment about Lady Croom - she was *excellent* at the Old Vic. But it was definitely the chemistry between Hainsworth and Dillane that carried it for me. I'm sorry the west end transfer loses out in comparison, as I've been madly recommending it to everyone I know.
I would still *absolutely* recommend this production! It's true that the new actors in the roles of Bernard, Lady Croom, and Hannah are disappointing. But Dillane's, Hainsworth's, and Cooper's performances remain incandescent.
Fwiw, I'd certainly recommend Wife To James Whalen at the Jermyn Street Theatre. It's no Arcadia, but the play is excellent and the ensemble of actors are superb.
Can understand the use of microphones in musical theatre, where regular performances for a long run must strain the voice, but not otherwise. Actors used to be taught to project at drama school; has this gone out of fashion?
I wholeheartedly agree with you about standing ovations for poor or even average plays, and it's both a disservice and disrespectful to the excellent drama that really is worth this accolade. Yes, the cast have performed live for an audience, but that's their job, and there is nothing wrong with seated applause.
Maggie Smith, Penelope Keith, Felicity Kendall - ah, you are singing the right songs.
With the title of your piece, I thought you might be about to talk about 'Brideshead revisited'
"Nonsense! Sit down! Have some respect for art!" is far too often my mental refrain.