All boats carry Hamlet costumes in case of shipwreck |
My introduction to both Hamlet
and the opera, Carmen, was through a Gilligan’s Island episode--you know, the
one where a movie producer crash lands his plane on the island with them. He sends out a distress call, so it
looks like at last help is on the way--hurrah! But, before the rescue, Ginger
wants to convince the producer to cast her in one of his movies. So our
intrepid castaways come up with the brilliant (at least brilliant to all future
pop culture) idea to stage Hamlet set
to tunes from Carmen. (And also, it
turns out, from Offenbach’s Tales of
Hoffmann, but I just learned that.) The producer is impressed, so impressed
that he slinks away to be rescued without them so he can produce Hamlet, The Musical as his own original
idea. Poor islanders, foiled again.
My childhood speaks |
Gilligan’s Island
ran from 1964 to 1967. This astonishes me because it means that during the
70’s, when I saw it, I only ever viewed it in reruns. (In between Bewitched and I Love Lucy episodes. Oh that Desi.) And, boy, did I view it. Gilligan’s Island was a staple of my
childhood. I must have seen every episode at least three times, especially
during the long rainy Seattle summer afternoons when only reruns filled the
airwaves. Television had enormous power and influence on me during those years.
To say it was my window on the world is a vast understatement. What an
astonishing use of my time and childhood.
Matches the shag |
I grew up in a classic, brand new subdivision rife
with young families and children where every house was decorated in Harvest
Gold or Avocado Green. Your choice of color would determine the shade of your
shag carpet, appliances and panel of hideous frosted glass located next to your
front door. I’m sorry to remind you that this is how many of us lived in the
70’s, I truly am. I just spent five minutes looking at photos of ugly 70’s
kitchens, and it is more depressing than I can say.
In this classic, hastily-built subdivision there were three
choices of floor plan—rambler, tri-level or split level. Every friend’s home
you went into you knew where to find the bathroom because you’d already been in
three other houses exactly (and I mean exactly)
like it. Even as a child I knew this was wrong, that I was living in an
architectural wasteland. My subdivision was named “Wellington.” I assume this
was after the Duke of Wellington, defeater of Napoleon, victor of Waterloo. I
could weep.
For the rambling man |
My house was of the rambler variety. Three bedrooms, two baths. It looked something like the photo to the right, except
it was brownish-olive-brown in color.
Brown was very seventies. People
wore brown, decorated with brown, and had lots and lots of brown hair. Men
had brown moustaches and sported brown sideburns. People began to eat brown
bread and macramé brown hanging plant holders with brown jute that would hold
brown plants once the poor things died.
No mowing |
My father didn’t want to mow grass (he had allergies), so he
covered our front yard in rocks. It looked a little like the photo to the left, except, well, less attractive. But I do admire his willingness to experiment. Every other yard in the entire 80-house
subdivision had a freaking lawn. We were the strange ones.
Though I didn’t read Hamlet
until my freshman year of college, it must’ve been sometime during the
purgatory just this side of hell known as junior high that it dawned on me that
the play in the Gilligan’s Island
episode was a highly abridged version of one of the greatest works in the
English language. The source of most of the episode’s tunes probably didn’t
occur to me until I studied opera during my junior year abroad and saw Carmen for the first time in Florence.
Now, though I love Carmen,
I’m not a huge fan of Hamlet; he’s
too petty and indecisive for me.
(He was the son of the king, for crying out loud. His rightful throne was usurped. Why the
heck didn’t he get some nobles together and chase his uncle out of Denmark?) Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice and The
Tempest are my favorites of Shakespeare’s plays, and I’ve got a soft spot
for Romeo and Juliet. But Gilligan
will forever whisper in my ear (to the melody of the Habenera
aria), “To fight or flee, to fight or flee. I ask myself to be or not to
be?"
So two of the heavyweights of the Western canon were introduced
to me by the likes of Lovey and Thurston Howell the Third. Faux, ersatz, a parody
before I had any idea of what was being parodied. Did my culture value me so
little or the works so little that I was fed the spoof rather than the real
thing? I guess it could’ve been worse. No doubt children these days miss nary a classic via The Simpsons.
Pusher |
But Chopin—Chopin was different. He didn’t come through the back door. He was introduced to
me as he ought to have been--whole, genuine, the real thing--straight into my
soul via the ephemeral elegance of ballet.
Trapped in my seventies subdivision, attending a school that mostly bored me to tears, my one
saving grace, besides reading a book a day, was ballet lessons. I took ballet at first twice a week,
then three times, then pretty much most of Saturday added as well. And Chopin
was the music of the barre, of the center floor, of the porte de bras. Yes, his
tempo was often altered slightly so my teacher, Mrs. Bruce, could sternly count, “And one, and two, and three, and four,” but it was still him directly
responsible for the rippling notes.
A young girl's heroin |
Ballet! Not only did I get introduced to Giselle, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and Les
Sylphides, but also art, because one Christmas Mrs. Bruce gave us
all posters of dancers by Impressionists (Degas! Renoir!) as gifts. Mine was this beauty on the right. She was on my bedroom wall until I went
away to college. And classical music! Tchaikovsky, of course; but also Ravel, Liszt,
Saint-Saens, and a host of others. (But not Beethoven. I became acquainted with
him later.) It was rapture, euphoria, cultural heroin. Like having two hundred
years of European civilization injected straight into my veins. I was hooked, a
junkie for life. No wonder I loved ballet fiercely for five years even though I
didn’t have the body for it. (I had no turn out, my legs and feet just wouldn’t
do 180 degrees, and classical ballet is cruel, cruel, cruel. You have the body
or you don’t. After the body, then comes talent, determination, lyricism, and
effort. But the body comes first.)
Eventually I gave up on ballet after glimpsing that this
rarefied, mysterious world wonderfully far from shag rugs and television laugh tracks might also be
accessible through literature and college. Chopin’s music still beckoned, so enigmatic and sublime. Life would be a glorious wonder if only entry into his universe could be obtained.
Suburban soul food |
There are cruelties and there are cruelties. Ballet is
merciless. It knows its enchantment and demands everything of you that can be
given. It is so heartless it can turn away emaciated orphans from its door
without a twinge of regret. Gilligan’s
Island in comparison was a TV dinner cook. Its intentions were no doubt
benign enough, but when I was literally starved for culture, it fed me Twinkies
and Cheez-Whiz.
But Chopin, it turns out, was the cruelest of all. Yes, he
fed my soul when I had little else to sustain me, and yes, I still hear traces
of that magic world (secret garden?) as I play his notes on my piano. But
there is never a final passageway to enter, no key to turn in the last lock. Yes, the floating preludes, the hushed nocturnes, the soaring waltzes limn the
mysteries of the human experience. They allude (so delicately!) to the vast,
lost chambers in our souls we long for but never visit because we’ve forgotten
how or never knew the path. But his music promises what might be, not what is. And
it’s not a promise that it keeps.
Did he promise a rose garden? |
Perhaps this isn’t Chopin’s fault. Perhaps he just glimpsed these worlds, too, and the best he
could do was communicate potential, not define how to achieve it. Perhaps,
indeed, sensing a plane of consciousness askew to our own, one just out of
reach, that we catch sight of only from the corner of our eye or in a fleeting run of notes, is an immutable
part of being human (transcended by a few lamas and saints.) We get the moments, the glimpses, and
must bear it best we can. Even if it means we live out a Gilligan’s Island version of Hamlet.
Really lovely post, I grew up in the 70's too and watched Gilligan's Island obsessively too, although I have to admit towards the end, even though I already knew the outcome, I found myself wishing The Skipper would just tie him up or just knock him out, just temporarily of course, and the send back a search party to rescue him.
ReplyDeleteBesides me being Puerto Rican(which means that I was exposed too many different types of musi, my Dad's fav. Was the opera but all latin music was played at home) I also took ballet, just for a year but I love it to this day and feel that just that little year influenced me greatly, all dancers should have some ballet.
I found your blog when I searched for the opera episode of Gilligan's Island, a show I watched in real time, making me a few years old than you. To this day, I can't hear Carmen's Toreador without singing along with the skipper's words.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog. You tell the type of stories I would love to be able to share. I've tried, as you can see here: http://notveryfancynancy.blogspot.com/,
but I never quite get it down the way it plays in my head. Just wanted to drop a comment so you know someone is actually reading you!
Thanks for the comment! We are probably of the same age. It's funny how the nooks and crannies of one's culture seep permanently into the recesses of our minds. Whoever wrote that Gilligan's Island episode is probably still chortling at the bizarre permanent neural synapse connections he/she caused.
DeleteYour blog is good! Who knows what, in the end, the purpose of something as ephemeral as a blog (living only among the bytes and pixels) might be, but capturing a moment, either of time or of understanding, is never a bad thing.
Harold Hecuba was truly evil.
ReplyDeleteIndeed he was.
DeleteAH,yes. .THE narcissistic psycopath..Harold hecuba THE dork WE LOVE TO hate. .sure HE GOT off wearing gingers dress probably HAD Mary Anna SEXY black TIGHTS ON underneath.....HA HA HA HA
ReplyDeleteOh,yes I've often wondered THE kind of aggressive sexual insanity was perusing behind THE stage during his Looney COSTUME changes....all OF THE banging, crashing, INSANE contortions AND crazy camera shaking going ON. ..completely INSANE narcissism. ...sure HE enjoyed wearing THE SEXY GIRL's dresses,bras, TIGHTS AND wigs
ReplyDelete..GOOD God almighty ...soo demented AND disturbing narrcisstic