European Journey

Paris....endless views, history, art...talk and more talk...

Exhibit; Renoir and Renoir....The side by side display of the paintings of the the father and the films of the son. What a contrast. A continuous loop of the movie Moulon Rouge next to an oil painting of the same scene: the movie boring after two replays; the painting something you could look at for a lifetime without the slightest fatigue...so much vitality in what the paint reveals::

At night. After a brief visit with Jeff at qn opening of two landscqpe painters we went to the Mabou Mimes version of The Doll's House castwith dwarves in the male roles. This framed and made the comment that the male power is invested in the very puffed up egos of very small personages. The scene was already part of what was promised as a 'spectacle' The lowering of red drapes that gradually enclosed the theater space until there was a feeling of claustrophobia qnd intimacy; A cut out of a doll's house was unfolded on the stage over which the female performers towered. When the men entered; they came through the doll house doors which were just the right size for them and the women fell to their knees to play qt the same height. There were some easy laughs as when Thorvald said Nora's actions made him feel small....She wqs played as an exaggeration of being the perfect doll and songbird her husband wants her to be....and some startling stage actions of sexual and flirtacious interactions that the scale of the actors made into a mad romp. Nora indeed does leave at the end;;;the director framed the last scene as grand opera with
Nora in a stage box...surrounded by marionetes of men and women mimicing her actions and with her slowly stripped of her costume her wig...until we see a rather androgenous naked Nora....perhaps a death before rebirth....qnd perhaps a little over the top. But then; this is Paris...

Last night Leonard gave a reading/discussion of his book Lost Paris. He has researched via the library photos of the old Paris that begqn to be lost when the German architect Housmann straightened out the boulevards and redevelopment set in. Leonard tqkes people on tours of the city and has taken photos of the new to compared with the old ....the discussion was heated and along familiar lines..if you favor the old you are accused of sentimentality and against better condtions for the poor...

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