Swings and roundabouts right?

I made one, haha

It’s no wonder the production has won so many awards. I hope they tour it again for a longer season when they are back from France. 15/15

Then from the PIE we can move out again to the Sanskrit manas “mind, spirit” or munih “sage, seer” and we are back at Cassandra, at being able to read the world around you and understand what is likely to happen next, and then being empowered to shape or challenge or prepare for that. 14/15

What does meaning mean? “to have in mind” from Middle English mēnen, from Old English mænan "intend (to do something)”, alongside the Sean Gaelige mian “wish, desire”, Cymraeg mwyn “enjoyment”, and PIE *men- “to think”. 13/15

This is what AI can’t do, right? This is the very thing that (as a teacher) I want my students to be able to do; to make meaning. 12/15

But during the play we all sat there, doing nothing, thinking that we were doing the right thing because in the theatre we are meant to sit and watch and laugh and clap and otherwise stay silent. In Ganesh the audience is both interpolated into the play and interpellated by it. 11/15

I find myself hearing that adage of evil triumphing when good people do nothing (Burke? Mill? I don’t think a proper attribution for the quote was ever determined). 10/15

Was that just part of how the actor prefers to engage with others? I know plenty of neurodiverse folk who dislike physical contact. Or was it a refusal to join with someone because of fear, dislike? 9/15

We comfort ourselves that, this is imagined. We let the conventions govern our behaviour, our bodies. But at curtain call the man who had refused to die compliantly refuses to hold hands with the cast member who performed violence against him. 8/15

The idea that we sit, we watch, we clap or we laugh, but we don’t intervene. We are addressed directly and we sit silently in response. We watch a vulnerable man be attacked and hurt by a man who is in a position of trust, power and authority, and we stay in our seats. 7/15

I think that Mark became the avatar for the audience, his limited capacity to communicate, his purported inability to differentiate between the imaged and the real, reflected the audiences limited capacities when they feel themselves bound by theatrical (and by extension) social conventions. 6/15

It’s one of the things I love about Brecht’s and Brechtian inspired theatre, that the performers make their work & the theatrical conventions explicit.The play opened and closed with Mark (played by Tamika) sitting in a spotlight, reminiscent of the opening scene and closing scenes in Godot. 5/15

It was the natural trajectory of the Thatcherite/Reaganist project that was reiterated through New Labour in the UK, and into current populist politics.
I think the thing that was really impactful for me was the way it makes the audience complicit. 4/15

People who experience the daily fascistic tendencies of our society (in this instance, the disabled writers and actors involved with Back to Back) have seen and been telling us that this is where we are headed. 3/15

I think the thing that was so significant for me about the play was the recognition that, while the play feels so pressing and salient in our current socio-political context, it was written 15 odd years ago, and was telling us that this was where we were heading the whole time. 2/15

As noted, it is nearly 6 am and I have been awake since 1:30. Yay.

I got obsessed when we put on her play Morning Sacrifice for VCE theatre studies. I think Cusack's work is undervalued for teen readers.

Also Come in Spinner is an under rated Australian Classic and (along with Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy) would be on any #AustralianLiterature curriculum I got to build.
#RareBooks #Booksky