Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Oh Romeo, Romeo...please take a Xanax

Tonight I was feeling quite unwell, so Matt insisted I seize the opportunity to skip this last Wednesday night church event before AWANA starts again next week and people are actually depending on me.

That's how I ended up catching the second half of a live production of Cyrano de Bergerac on PBS--starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner, of all people. He was, of course, amazing. And she was...pretty.

Matt joined me for the last scene, when Cyrano comes to Roxanne at the convent to see her one last time and to reveal his true identity as ardent letter-writer and balcony-scene soliloquizer--just before he croaks. The only version of this story that Matt has seen is the one in the Steve Martin/ Darryl Hannah movie Roxanne, and they tweaked the ending to make it more user-friendly. He turned to me tonight, shocked, and asked, "Is this a tragedy?"

Yes, obviously. It was destined to be a tragedy the first time Cyrano told Roxanne a big, fat whopper.

Clearly, I'm not an expert in literature, nor in theatre. But I do think we can glean a few lessons about how NOT to ruin relationships by studying the classic tragedies. Back in the day, sitting in eight grade English and watching Franco Zefferelli's version of Romeo and Juliet, I began to feel this nagging irritation with all the characters--the whiners, the liars, the idiot boys. Don't get me wrong, I still bawled my eyes out at the end, but I would never want to be with Romeo.

Classmate turns to me, with tears in her eyes:

"That was so beautiful..."

Rolling my eyes, I reply:

"No, that was so senseless and stupid."

"What?!"

"Well, if Romeo had just been an emotional, whiny, long-winded mess for a few minutes longer, she would have awakened, and everything would be fine. But no, he has to choose this one time to cut it short. Either that, or he could just chill out to begin with and do a little fact checking, or pause to take a tranquilizer. I mean, I know Mantua is way out in the sticks but honestly...I want to slap him."

Imagine living with a high-strung man like that.

"Honey, what's wrong? What happened to the T.V.? Why are you weeping?"

"The Mavericks lost. There's no point in even owning a T.V. anymore, so I smote it with my sword. I'll be out in the backyard digging my own burial plot..."

"Okay, well say hi to Yorick for me..." (oops, wrong play....)

Same with Cyrano. Fifteen years visiting the woman you love in a nunnery, and you still won't speak up because your nose is ugly? These are serious self-esteem issues we're talking about.

Drama-schmama. Those guys belong in group therapy. So what if all those character flaws are key to the plot?

And now you see why I will never write anything the world will remember. And why I married a very laid-back man.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I must confess, the end of R & J always makes me angry. It's not beautiful. It's dumb. I want to punch Romeo in the face. But since I can't, I end up wanting to punch myself in the face. I am nothing like Romeo.

Audra Jennings said...

I almost missed that you had posted a new blog. I did see the feed though on my blog.

All that lovie dovie stuff just makes me sick.

Audra Jennings said...

I'm passing a blog award along to you.

You may claim it, by looking here:

http://audrasinsanity.blogspot.com/2009/01/butterfly-award.html