My busy weekend started out with a visit to Dominic West's version of Eddie in
A View from the Bridge. A fairly traditional interpretation, what I did find interesting was that Eddie's increasingly toxic behaviour was still being laughed at by the audience, which I found really strange. In the second half, the first kiss got the appropriate hiss/gasp of shock, but the second one, which is surely one of the cruxes of the play, got some gasps but also quite a lot of laughter - what was that about? Apart from that, the modern resonances around immigration and fragile working class masculinity still hold I think. I liked Callum Scott Howell's portrayal of Rodolpho too, a proud man who refuses to conform to the stereotypes and hostility he faces as an illegal immigrant, although his italian accent was a bit flaky. In this version I felt a fair bit of sympathy for Eddie who doesn't understand himself, living in a world he doesn't understand, and I think that is purely down to West's portrayal. Ultimately, though I still don't feel that sorry at his ending.
Saturday was an even more packed day with an early trip to the Pride tour at the Globe, which I highly recommend, particularly if you have already done the usual one. Taking a long view of Queer history, from the Celts, through the Romans, with a big focus around the 16th and 17th centuries, and just about up to the modern day, but of course focusing on Shakespeare and his contemporaries attitudes and language around Queerness, it was a really interesting hour, which I would happily have extended to another hour. Most of the families and individuals there were also heading over to London Pride though, so we all dashed off across the river to get our spots for the march.
After a fairly gloomy start the sun came out, and we spent an hour or two at the march before deciding to move on to the various stages dotted between Trafalgar Square and Soho. I gather there were the usual bigots, including a group who were marching in the parade to object to the parade (?!?!?) but we didn't see any. I love the atmosphere of London at Pride, with so many streets closed to traffic, meaning that everywhere feels like a party, including the Soho fire station which was pumping out dance music for the whole closed street. Soho was particularly packed, with the queue for that stage going round the full boundary of the square and then some, so we headed back to a pub for some drinks and music and cramped dancing on the streets. Then on to the National Portrait Gallery for a period of quiet, before back across the river, stopping for some music and dancing at yet another free stage at the Southbank Centre before collapsing into a train home. Although there is still so much to do, and so much bigotry still about, with things going backwards in many ways (and of course London Pride has a fair bit of corporate pinkwashing), it's still good to take some time to celebrate too.
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