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Hedda Gabler Survives A Makeover

The Old Vic once again hosts Hedda Gabler, this time starring Sheridan Smith instead of Maggie Smith

Last night we went to see Hedda Gabler at The Old Vic. I've never seen the play performed, nor have I read the entire Ibsen play, but my daughters both wrote fascinating papers on it for literature classes, so I was eager to see what the new production, with a re-write by Brian Friel, was all about.

Ibsen writes dark, but modern audiences like a little light humor with their dark, so apparently Friel added some funny bits to the morose play. Those were the bits that felt off. There was a scene in which Hedda's new husband, George, obsesses over a pair of embroidered slippers. The academic comes across as silly, and later, when he finds out his wife is preggers (or is she?), he goes from silly to demented. 

This was jarring in an otherwise finely acted and translated play. Nor was Adrian Scarborough's performance as George Tesman entirely convincing: he was too old to come off as a newly hatched PhD, hoping for his first job as a professor.

Another "funny" thread running through the play was Judge Brack's obsession with Americanisms. Since it's very doubtful that Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian writing in the late 1800s, would have been concerned by Americanisms, I figured Friel was playing to his audience of Americanism-hating Brits. But even I had to laugh when Judge Brack declared "whoopie" to be a Native American term. At least he was politically correct.

The plot of Hedda Gabler holds together a bit better, if, that is, you can buy the conceit of Hedda's malevolence. Is she mentally ill? Is she a narcissist? Is she simply a bored housewife who delights in manipulating her friends? I saw a bit more than that in Sheridan Smith's performance: I saw a vulnerable woman who doesn't understand the capricious impulses that compel her to make cruel jokes about an old lady's hat, who once threatened to set her school friend's hair on fire. Yet later she envies the same woman for her audacity in leaving her boring husband for her lover Eilert Loevborg, the flawed genius (and recovering alcoholic) who's the heart of the play, if Hedda is the soul.

I loved Hedda, the same way I loved the vulnerable but malicious Sylvia in Parade's End. I was so caught up in her tragic life that I actually gasped with relief when I saw Sheridan Smith come back to the stage at the end to take her bow. The audience, who were more enthusiastic than I've heard at any other London performance, seemed to feel the same way. (I suspect they were applauding Friel's calling attention to those dreaded Americanisms.) 

The Old Vic, named for the princess in whose honor it was refurbished in 1833, is a lovely building. It serves as a convincing backdrop to a nineteenth century play, even to the point of its one quaint pair of loos, which forces men and women to squeeze together in a tiny corridor while waiting for a coveted spot inside. I understand the restrictions of these old buildings, but surely if Ibsen himself can withstand the addition of a few laugh lines The Old Vic can find room for a few more toilets.

Recall: Practice in Perfect Surroundings

Sparky returns to "check in".

Yesterday we took Sparky to Burnham Beeches, an ancient woodland not far from here. It was a nice change from Black Park, where we usually go for dog walks on the weekend, and not as busy, due to a footrace that had just ended. Most people were leaving as we arrived. 

As we do, we brought along some high value treats and our whistle, intending to do some recall training while Sparky ran off lead in the woods. While there are livestock pastured in the park, they're located behind a fence in a different area from where we were walking. 

The walk was lovely—the beeches are still mostly green, just starting to turn yellow, so it was easy to convince myself it was still summer. (That is, if I ignored the inches of mud that sucked at my hiking shoes, stirred up by the runners that morning.) 

After a few solid recalls, we were starting to feel confident that Sparky was attentive and listening for that whistle. Then he blew it, so to speak. My husband blew the whistle just as Sparky spied a squirrel. I saw his head turn left, and he took off, away from us, leaving us stamping our feet in frustration. (Okay, we weren't literally stamping our feet. We were actually cursing but this is a family blog.)

We continued to explore the footpaths, rewarding Sparky when he returned to us after his little sprints through the trees (we call this "checking in"). Then we whistled again, in a situation where we were sure he'd return, and he did. Back to, well, square two. Or three.

Running so fast he's a blur!

Training tip: It's important not to teach your dog that it's okay to ignore the whistle, so it's best not to blow it when you think he won't comply. You must incrementally increase the distraction level at which the dog will return..."incrementally" being the key, and most difficult to judge. 

Sparky's not 100% reliable with recall yet, but he's reliable in many situations. Which proved helpful later, as we were walking down one of the wide paved paths. We saw a family of adults coming toward us, and as they approached I heard the young man cry out as if distressed. A woman comforted him, and it was obvious that the young man was mentally handicapped. My husband and I both realized that he was likely expressing fear of the dog running around, so we quickly called Sparky, put him on the lead, and walked off the path, heading parallel through the woods so the distressed man couldn't see the dog.

We had judged the situation correctly: The woman called out "Thank you!" as we passed. Even though I knew Sparky would not have bothered the people—he gives strangers a wide birth—it was important to get him under control, and thankfully, our training paid off. He came right to us when we called him, even though I'd just seen a squirrel running up a tree. As soon as we passed we let him off lead again and practiced more recalls. 

We've been in situations where we wished other people had better control of their dogs—a strange dog is chasing Sparky, jumping at him, trying to engage him in play, while the owners call in vain. I want to yell at them to learn how to recall their dogs, but I've been there too. Until we had Sparky, I didn't know how important a good recall was. Our previous dogs were generally well behaved, and a so-so recall worked most of the time, and when it didn't, there was no harm done. 

Now we're acutely aware of how some dogs and some people—not to mention cows, sheep, and horses—would prefer not to have an uncontrolled dog nearby. While your dog may be perfectly safe, someone else is not feeling safe.

So we're going to keep at it, using stinky sardines or whatever gets the job done. 

Fortunately we have these beautiful, ancient woodlands to practice in. 

The ancient beeches of Burnham Beeches

Friday Cow Blogging

"Hello, can I help you with your online cow-related issues?"

Yes, it's come to this. Due to a lack of sufficiently hardworking cows, willing to work year-round for the low pay few mealy apples I offer here at WDIK Friday Cow Division, I've had to go offshore to find cows to feature on this site. 

But don't worry; I would never outsource this blog to sub-standard, mooing-as-a-second-language bovines. No, indeed. I've managed to find cows from America's leading dairy state, Wisconsin. 

"Hey, you speak the same language!"

And not just any Wisconsin cows, mind you: only the best, most beautiful bovines are included here. These cows are all part of an organic herd, raised on natural grasses and kept healthy without the use of antibiotics and hormones.

No synthetic fertilizers in that pasture, either. 

These photos were taken by Dr Guy Jodarski, staff veterinarian for Organic Valley, who sent the photos to my daughter who then emailed them to me, knowing how much I appreciate good cow photos. 

The green, green grass of...home?

I must say, I've never seen finer looking cows. And that lucious grass they're munching on...if this gets out, some of the local cows are going to wish they were outsourced. 

Peek below for more of Wisconsin's finest organic cows. 

Race to the Bottom

There are many things that America does better than the UK. Chinese food, for instance. Plumbing. Car parks. 

But its safety net, i.e. social spending, is not something to emulate. As an American, losing your job means losing your health care; often it means losing your home. Public spending on higher education is minimal in the United States, in fact, there's an entire system of private schools and universities that just doesn't exist in the UK (where free or nearly free education has been the norm). Infrastructure is crumbling; libraries are closing; schools are aging.

Yet as the chart prepared by the IMF shows, if the UK continues on the austerity track of the Cameron government, public sector spending in the UK will fall precipitously below that in the US sometime in the future, all things being equal (assuming no upcoming US administration succeeds in passing an austerity budget, an assumption I wouldn't bet on). 

The article accompaning the graph describes the situation thus: 

Particularly striking is the fact that Britain will end up spending less as a proportion of its national income than even the US, the international byword for a decrepit public sector.

"Decrepit public sector". How do you like that, America? Think all those Olympic golds mean the world looks to us in envy? Think our giant parking lots and supersized Wal-Marts are admired from abroad, while our public sector is described as "decrepit"? No one in their right mind wants US-level public spending, particularly when it comes to health care. We are, quite frankly, the laughing-stock of the world, even after the addition of Obamacare, which puts a band-aid (a plaster, if you will) on the pathetic corporatized health care system in place in the US.

Decrepit. Think of that next time you tool down the Interstate in your sweet SUV, dodging potholes and holding your breath over bridges. 

But don't worry; you won't be alone for long in your decrepit-ness, as you can see from the graph above. Britain will be right there with you, wallowing in aging infrastructure and a health care system that will systematically begin denying care, a la its American cousin, if the Tory austerity program continues. 

On the other hand, we can all move to Germany, which had the foresight to offer workers who'd otherwise be laid off subsized part time work at their previous positions, so that when the economy bounced back, the workers would be in place. Not wasteful government spending; rather, simply smart thinking  "Decrepit" isn't the word that comes to mind when I think of German roads, either. 

So, if the Tory government would like a bit of advice, coming from an American who's been there, done that, do try to avoid cuts to schools, roads, and health care, especially when the economy is in recession. Halt this race to the bottom, because that way lies broken infrastructure.

And we all know what happened when London Bridge came falling down.

Morning Rituals

Every morning, around 4:30 give or take a half hour, I come awake from whatever dream I've been lost in. Just as I'm aware I've regained consciousness, I hear Sparky jump off the sofa where he sleeps, on the other side of the bed. 

I don't know how he knows I'm awake. He just does. He's a dog. They know these things.

He comes around to my side, stretches, shakes his collar just in case my keen hearing has been lost overnight, and then makes a happy gasping noise. I hear his tail wag—yes, that's a discernable sound—and he settles his head on the bed. If I don't respond with a touch, an ear rub, he nudges his nose into my side, rather forcefully. 

"Get up!" he seems to be saying. Or maybe "GET UP!"

I often do. But sometimes, I want a few more minutes in bed, just enough to come fully awake if I've been dreaming especially hard. So I tell him, "GoBackToBedIt'sTooEarly". Exactly like that, uttered in the same tone every time. 

And he does. 

He trots over to the sofa, and jumps back in "his bed". Five minutes later, he remembers that I'm AWAKE! and he tries again. 

Sometime this repeats a few times, but then I think, if I were a dog and hadn't been able to pee for eight hours or so, I'd want to go out and do my business. And if it had been twelve hours since I last ate I'd be thinking, too, of my empty belly. 

And I also think of all the things I could be doing that are more interesting than lying awake in bed. I mean, just imagine what my Twitter feed looks like! And my Facebook friends have probably posted photos of their children, or their food, or their pets.

There was a time, pre-Sparky, that I'd be awakened at 5:30 by the sound of Rule Britannia on the radio, followed by the Shipping Forecast. (My ode to the Shipping Forecast is here.) That leisurely morning ritual is long gone, due mainly to the BBC's decision in 2006 to do away with playing the "UK Theme" during their a.m. switchover from World Service to Radio 4. (You can listen to it here if you're nostalgic.)

So now I get up at 4:30. After all, if you can't listen to the stirring full orchestral version of Rule Brittania, followed by a general synopsis of the pressure areas around the British coast, what's the point of lying in bed until 5:30? 

Sparky doesn't care about weather in Cromarty and as he's Irish, Rule Britannia probably wouldn't move him either. The thought of a meal, though, rouses him even more than the percussion section of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. 

And after he goes out for a quick pee and gobbles the food I put out for him, he's ready for another nap, this time in my bed, where he snoozes until my husband wakes up.

And I sit down to my computer and catch up on the night's news.