Really Iowa?

[jane]

I am actually a filth monger.  But it is his scimitar, and he's about to chop off the poor young lady's head.

then why is she laughing?  Is she, maybe, watching something funny on TV?


             

[Sarah]

It looks like her eyes are closed.  I think he told her he was going to give her a great big treat, but she had to keep her eyes shut, or he'd change his mind, and she's laughing in happy anticipation.  Naughty naughty man!

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Sarah wins!  I'd post the dialogue from the play but that seems a bit egomaniacal.  Basically events transpire more or less as Sarah describes, and she's babbling on about redecorating and has no idea he's about to behead her.  I can't remember exactly, but it might have been restaged for the photo.

About a scene later her head appears in a box, but don't worry, the actress comes back many times as other characters.

How did a thread about the primary elections become a thread about my play?  I mean, I know how, but man.

[jane]

Basically events transpire more or less as Sarah describes, and she's babbling on about redecorating and has no idea he's about to behead her.  I can't remember exactly, but it might have been restaged for the photo.

About a scene later her head appears in a box, but don't worry, the actress comes back many times as other characters.

and do those female characters get beheaded as well?  Are they all laughing just before it happens?

[Laurie]

I'm going to take this as an opportunity to let Lamont know how I feel about the actress in that picture: AWESOME. She was my favorite in your play.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Thanks, Laurie, but that was actually a different actress (the photo was from Denver, which was a much bigger production and had an almost entirely different cast).  Both actresses who played that role were great, though.  The one you saw had just been in Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center.  But I still wish you saw the Denver production, or at least saw it later in the run; it was still pretty rough when you came.

Jane, I'm reading some commentary on the beheading of women there.  The play is a sort of adaptation/deconstruction of the Arabian Nights, which are (among other things) breathtakingly misogynist.  I decided to just to go for it and draw attention to that fact rather than bowdlerizing the story.  It got us a couple of walkouts (more in Denver than NY) but there is a payoff - part of the take of the play is Scheherezade as a feminist heroine.  But to answer your question, that actress went on to play a young Arab princess named Maridah and her lookalike Juml, in a riff on Vertigo; Kuchuk Hanem, the prostitute visited by Gustave Flaubert during his travels in Egypt; and Lubna, a Palestinian-American housewife living in Michigan.  There's some objectification there but no more beheadings.

I'm still a little weirded out by this thread drift.  Anyone want to talk about the South Carolina primaries, or Kucinich's exclusion from the Nevada debates?  Maybe I can conjure a Ron Paul supporter from the internets to get back to the topic at hand:

RON PAUL SUCKS
RON PAUL SUCKS
RON PAUL SUCKS*





*While I'd never vote for the man, I don't actually think this; I'm just trying to trigger some Google alerts.

[John Junk]

Sarah wins!  I'd post the dialogue from the play but that seems a bit egomaniacal.  Basically events transpire more or less as Sarah describes, and she's babbling on about redecorating and has no idea he's about to behead her.  I can't remember exactly, but it might have been restaged for the photo.

About a scene later her head appears in a box, but don't worry, the actress comes back many times as other characters.

Gee wiz, somebody's got commitment issues.

[John Junk]

Also, getting back on track, this would seem to support Jason:
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/race-bait/index.html

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Sarah wins!  I'd post the dialogue from the play but that seems a bit egomaniacal.  Basically events transpire more or less as Sarah describes, and she's babbling on about redecorating and has no idea he's about to behead her.  I can't remember exactly, but it might have been restaged for the photo.

About a scene later her head appears in a box, but don't worry, the actress comes back many times as other characters.

Gee wiz, somebody's got commitment issues.

Well, to be fair, Shahriyar does, not me.  It's actually crazy - the whole premise of The Arabian Nights is that every night, the king marries a virgin, deflowers her, and beheads her.  Scheherezade distracts him by telling one story after another night after night, and her happy ending is that the king forgives her for being a woman and they have kids together.

Interesting link re. Obama, JJ.  Maybe that explains his shudder-inducing Reagan speech this week.  I think I might just stick with Kucinich.

[dave from knoxville]

You can only stick with Kucinich for so long, unfortunately. Then you have to go with one of these lunatics, unless you want one of THOSE lunatics to win.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I dunno, Dave, I'm thinking of becoming delusional.

[dave from knoxville]

I've got a big head start. RUN!

[Sarah]

Jasongrote, you've already written the play, so this is a little closing-the-barn-doorish, but have you read John Barth's Chimera?  One of the three novellas it comprises is a take on the Scheherazade tale.  You might also get a kick out of Scheherazade Cooks! by Wadeeha Atiyeh, a cookbook in which the recipes alternate with little stories involving Scheherazade and Shariar (I believe Atiyeh goes ahead and calls him Haroun al-Rashid).  The idea is that it wasn't just the stories she told him at night but her cooking lessons during the day that stayed his hand for nigh on three years.  I loved the book as a kid, and some of the recipes weren't too bad, I seem to remember.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Sarah, you're not the first person to recommend the Barth book to me - I found some other Barth in a used bookstore in Connecticut on the recommendation but haven't seen that one yet.  The cookbook is news, though - that sounds really cool.  We have like 40 cookbooks and because of that I refuse to look recipes up on the internet.  Thanks for the recommendations.

[jane]

Jane, I'm reading some commentary on the beheading of women there.

Wow, this sounds so professor-like.  It's taking me back.  Geez, tone that shit down - It's making me all flustered and excited and stuff.
Yeah, no, I'm no Andrea Dworkin, here.  I know you're not a misogynist - I've seen the Margaret Atwood on your bookshelf. 
I was just posting off the cuff shit trying to calm my nerves while waiting for some people to pick me up (who were late).  I shouldn't have been commenting on your play - a work I haven't seen.
But the fact that an actress that's been beheaded comes back as different characters made me think that it would be funny for her to be beheaded over and over again.  After every beheading, the head could be put in an ornate cake box and at the end of the play there could be this great pyramid of boxes with heads in them.  They could all be made of marzipan and then actors dressed as gigantic mice could creep out and eat them.  The heads could be filled with miniature marshmallows, which the mice would throw into the audience.  That's theatre I'd pay to see!