Short One Act Play Followed By In-Depth Analysis And Commentary
Short One Act Play, by Sam, Problemchildbride.
Girl: Ever get unaccountably sad?
Boy: Sure I do, we all do.
Girl: Which is worse, do you think? Unaccountable sadness or sadness for a reason?
Boy: Who cares? Cheer up, you miserable bint!
THE END
*
Late Night Arts Show Commentary on Short One Act Play.
Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck In Dark Studio Making Him Look Like Just A Head: Hmmnyes mmnyes. I see. Mnyesyesyesyes. An interesting treatment of an age-old puzzle in PCB’s newest play. I like the way Sam has voiced a pointless question and then very cleverly failed to answer it. That’s a very post-meta-ist thing to do, and although it’s an incredibly easy and mindless technique, that only adds to its post-metaism. In addition she has trivialised the whole question of despair using the common enough trope of forced incongruous humour. This is an old trick but in juxtaposing the old with the ultra modern post-metaism she is, I feel, commenting on society today in the larger sense of its meaninglessness.
Interviewer: You don’t think she’s just writing down any old crap and seeing where it ends up then, do you?
Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck: Aha, well, you see, lack of thought in plays is the newest thing, the very newest, darling. She’s being extraordinarily brave and avant-garde, I feel. Clearly, Tom Stoppard, or anyone with any real clue about the theater would think it was rubbish, but being rubbish is not the point, you see. Indeed it is hardly ever the point. This is exactly the sort of cutting edge tripe work that keeps people in black polo necks like me in a job. I think she’s marvellous and I shall be saying so tomorrow in my highly influential newspaper column.
Interviewer: Uh-huh. Do you not see any irony in the fact that this commentary has already gone on longer than the actual play?
Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck: My dear fellow, I could go on all night in this grating tone of voice.
Suddenly Grey and Defeated Looking Interviewer: Some might say she just couldn’t think of a post tonight and was a bit gloomy for no real reason so she desultoraly typed out something unutterably stupid.
Smirking Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck: Well, you see, that’s where you need me. To explain to you why you’re wrong on almost every point, and to make you and all your viewers feel stupid and inferior, sitting at home on their inelegant sofas with their high-street garments and not getting the high, high pop art that Sam has accomplished here.
Interviewer, Pinching Bridge Of Nose: You mean she was on some sort of illegal drugs when she penned this.
Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck: No, if you look at Sam’s past interviews you’ll notice she has always regretted not taking nearly enough illegal drugs.
Interviewer, Emboldening: I would submit that, after this…frankly disappointing effort, she probably needs a little something to raise her standard of work a little.
Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck: If by frankly disappointing effort you mean the crowning achievement of her blog and nascent theeyater career, then I concur.
(Interviewer stares at Knowledgable Theatre Critic In Black Polo Neck for some time).
Sombre Interviewer Turning To Camera: That appears to be all the time we have for this topic. Thank you so much, Mr. Knowledgable Critic, for your illuminating insights… Now, after the break we will be speaking to Ms. Diaphonous Scarves In Her Hair about some other idiot thing or other… my God! Is this what I got my English pHD for? To nod mindlessly at complete wankers every night in an ill-lit room? Why are we sitting in a black room, anyway? And where do they find these ridiculous people? And what the hell was that bloody awful Short One Act Play all about anyway, eh? I’ll tell you what – nothing, that’s what, nothing.
(Begins to unmike, continues to rage)
I mean, I’m seriously losing the will to live here talking about this desperately Godawful cra…
(Screen goes to commercial advertisements for the people at home… On set, the studio producer burst out crying and orders the assistant studio producer to go and fire that bastard host immediately for messing up his one big chance to actually, finally, produce (produce!), to prove himself capable of doing grown up serious programming. Who’s going to hire him now, after this debacle? the studio producer demands to know. Who?? he sobs. He slumps down heavily on his producer’s stool, certain that it’s back to bloody children’s programming for him.)
July 31st, 2008 at 11:53 pm
And between the lines there are pauses of 45min, 39min and 22min.
Tone of voice, some peoples just do not get that.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 am
I liked the play when I read it, but the critic turned me against it. Why is he dressed like the man in the Milk Tray commercial, the silly fraud?
August 1st, 2008 at 3:00 am
Now I just don’t know what to think.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:57 am
The unaccountable kind.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:15 am
why am i reminded of the lyric from chicago “and then we both reached for the gun…?”
*kudos, missus*
xoxoxo
August 1st, 2008 at 5:36 am
OK, does the critic or the interviewer look like that a**hole on Bravo from the Actor’s Studio? This matters. Respond soonest.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:26 am
Why it’s the ‘Culture Programme’ which is a made over ‘Late Night Line Up’ of the sixties and seventies or was it fifties? And having lost none of its ponciness but no Joan Bakewell in her heyday. Somehow Germaine ‘aint the same.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:44 am
Like the floaty talking heads in Beckett?s plays. Sam, this is amazing and this PCB person needs nothing additional in her works which are a constant source of wonderment in a sometimes barren interweb. She?s the Homer in the Simpsons, the jewel in a nihilistic Nile, the apple of our squinty eyes. There?s always some black polo necked fucker with anal mutterings about form and content. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on, be gentle with the horse though.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:57 am
outside my window today i counted two robins – one sad because the other beat it to the worm – the other sad because it had made its friend sad….. unnacountable and countable
August 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
I have achieved enlightenment!
August 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
Interviewer: And now, I’m joined by Primal Sneeze, the renowned blogger and exotic kitchen utensil breeder. So, Primal, what are your initial thoughts on the Problemchildbride’s latest work?
Primal Sneeze: Huh? Oh, yeah. It was okay. I suppose. Who are you? And where’s me jumper?
Note: The symbols . , and ? represent pauses of 43.76ms.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:48 am
I am sad because Donnie has robins, I too have robins, but they are no Napoleons, the shifty little beggars. Thank marmalade for the God Pigeon, and his lumbering entertainments.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Frankly, dear, I was one black polo away from this sort of commentary, my two degrees in Literature notwithstanding.
There were several things that stood in the way, though, aside from the polo. In no particular order:
1. I was from a small town in Missouri.
2. I couldn’t hold my pinky just right while drinking wine in the salons of Manhattan.
3. I was not full of shit.
I, however, loved it. Boffo!
I laughed; I cried; It became a part of me.
Cheers.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Vincent, only the 39 minute pause is meaningful though. The others are just where they forgot their lines for ages.
Nanas, thank God the days of indoor beret-wearing by theater critics are over.
Eryl, makes two of us.
Conan, it’s hard to counter something, anything, without a why.
Savannah, smirkers shouldn’t be allowed guns. No good ever came of mixing smirking and firearms.
Fragile, I just got a book from Alibris by that very douchebag, James Lipton. I was hoping it wasn’t the same person but it was. He is such a toadying sycophant I can hardly bear to watch that Actor’s Studio thing. The book, however, is about collective nouns and small snippets of how they arose.
Pat, Germaine Greer would never let anyone else get a word in edgeways the times I saw her on these late night art shows.
Sniffle, sometimes the number of times these critics contradict themselves in the same breath is breathtaking. Unfortunately, it’s not their breath that’s taken and they live to flap their lips another night.
Donnie, that’s a poem of a comment, my friend. I keep re-reading it. It’s a gem.
Kim, I hope it’s carbon neutral enlightenment!
Sneezy, ah, the poloneckless interviewee – a tricky animal. A wildcard. You never can tell what he or she’ll be like. Sometimes they can be even worse that Diaphonous Scarves In Her Hair Lady.
fmc, I want to know how pigeons keep losing their legs. There are so many stump-legged pigeons around that you wonder if there isn’t some lucrative black-market in pigeon legs for sale.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Rand, wouldn’t it be satisfying to walk around one of these salons snapping off extended pinkies?
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:02 am
When’s the film version coming out? And will the DVD have a commentary?
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 am
I’m certain I could do either role and do it with meaning! Power! Truth! I envision a short 3hr movie version. Lots of critical acclaim. Cult film-midnight movies in theatres across the nation.
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 am
You call that short? There are at least four superfluous words in there. Get an editor, lady.
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:40 am
It must be some fowl disease, there’s loads of them here too like that.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 am
I’m glad you didn’t explore which was worse — unexplained sadness, or sadness with a reason; I feared the explanation.
And then I read your commentary and it made me laugh and I wondered why a post of yours making sport of such poncey commentary should cheer me up so much?
Now you’ve got me thinking about pigeons. What’s up with all these dickey legs, anyway? I’ve just seen a couple like that myself! I wonder if they’re getting up to shin-kicking or doing pigeon aerobics or something.
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:03 am
Brilliant as always.
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Nice dig at Charlie Rose’s show, Sam. It annoys me that they sit in that dark studio like they’re in a bacl hole. Turn the damn lights on already.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Prendy, the film is coming out in the adverts between Coronation Street segments.
Jeremy, you’ll have to do your own hair and makeup though. And bring your own costume. Oh, and you don’t happen to know of a theatre we could have it in?
Caro, it was intended superfluity, meant as a biting comment on our wasteful society: even when we buy something little it comes in unnecessary packaging. Yeah, that’s what it was.
fatmammycat, legpox?
Mary, I think maybe they’re stepping on mines or something. Tiny pigeon mines left over from the War of Seagullian Succession in 1703.
Patsy, you’re too kind but I’m not about to start scolding you on it! Cheers.
Medbh, I was thinking less of Charlie Rose than of a certain BBC2 late night arts programme in the 80s. I don’t mind him so much although,gHe’s not perfect either. Sometimes I wish he would just shut up and let his interviewees talk.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I would edit this wonderful play even more brutally than Caro, reducing it to the epigrammatic “you miserable bint!” The syllabic rhythm is perfection itself, and needs no gilding. Add to that the mystery of the word “bint’, which, being a merkin, I have never heard nor seen before, and you have all the drama you could hope for.
In fact, in honor of this magnificent play (with the suggested edits) (for which a co-author credit would be only fitting)(and I’m thinking 30% of the foreign video take)(don’t want to be greedy), I am going to append “you miserable bint” to everything I say to people for the rest of the day. It’s the least I can do.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Oooh, Sparky, do let me know how it goes miserable binting everyone today! Maybe you could keep a tally of sharp looks or punches in the nose or beatings to within an inch of you life, or something. The next day you could call everyone wankers and, by comparing bruises day to day, find out which is the more offensive word. Bints are usually female though, so it’ll be extra good if you use it on a fella. Here’s what some bloke somewhere has to say about it.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Oh man, did you really believe that bloke? Richard Burton said “bint” in 1855! Do you know how old that would make Liz Taylor?? You ‘avin a laugh? YOU ‘AVIN A LAUGH?
August 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
You been watchin’ Extras? YOU BEEN WATCHIN’ EXTRAS?
October 8th, 2008 at 4:51 am
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