Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery

[mirrorshard]

February is LGBT History Month. friend_of_tofu, sashagoblin, mirabehn, and I are organizing a public readthrough of this rather delightful play (Wikipedia entry, script, about the author, that film).

It'll probably be the evening of Thursday 26th February, in a room in the University of Westminster. I'm figuring that the script runs about an hour from looking at it, so we might also want to program something else alongside it. Suggestions, anyone? Your input before hand is as welcome and as ardently desired as your presence on the night.

Regarding casting, I'm figuring at the moment that the best thing to do would be to split the larger parts and distribute things between whoever wants them on the day. NB: there are four small songs involved. One is for a female voice, one female-but-drunk, one a "melancholy youth", and one for a chorus of dancing demons. I don't have music for any of these.

I've done up a PDF script to use, mostly because I wanted to - it's here [600k PDF]. Note: I'm having some trouble opening it from the website, saying that it can't extract an embedded font. Some of the pages are displaying blank. Anyone know what I've done wrong, or if it's my FTP connection to the webserver playing up again?

Depending on what we decide about staging, degrees of nudity, and dance set-pieces, I may have to re-edit the script and cut out some of the stage directions. The venue might also have some influence on this, either from the staff's preferences, the size, or the windows.

As far as props go, most of them are dildos. I'm inclining towards the use of humorously shaped vegetables for this. The script specifies a fountain shaped like a naked woman standing on her head, spreading her legs, and pissing straight upwards; that will almost certainly not appear in the final version, I suspect.

Comments

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Am still trying to remember which play the_alchemist suggested...

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

*looks it up*

It's Wilmot's version of Fletcher's "Valentinian".

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Aha, will check it out, cheers.

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

oooh. i cando handoutsabout what Rochester was doing there, too...

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! I have suggested to M that we meet in a Central London pub on Thu to discuss. Is that doable for you, after work/study?

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

nope, alas, i'm otherwiseengaged, alas. cdeither of you do a weekend day,or next week?

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Completely booked up for the weekend, I'm afraid, but next week is doable. I have to be *in* work on Monday, I think, so maybe that evening?

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly available Monday evening - in fact, potentially any of next week except Tuesday.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Yay - good idea. I'd love to come if I can, but fear I might not, as I'm also (for work) organising an LGBT History Month event which will probably be then.

gnimmel and purplepiano organised a readthrough of this last year and so may be able to help you with music.

Do you know Valentinian? It's a tragedy by Rochester about one of the last Roman emperors, and in an odd sort of way it's rather good. Sodom is basically a parody of it. I mention this in case you wanted a longer event and couldn't find the perfect play to pair it with.

(And finally, I don't think it's supposed to be a fountain shaped like a naked woman, I think it's woman acting as a fountain!)

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I don't know it, but I shall look it up - thank you for the pointer.

And yes, looking at the script again, you're right - it says "a woman representing a fountain", which could be either clever meta-stagecraft or innovative garden furniture.

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

Nope,he meant a woman pissing upside down. Really.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Ah, but was it a woman pissing upside down on the stage, or in the garden? That's what makes the difference, whether it's a fountain representing a woman, or a woman representing a fountain. Or, of course, a woman representing a woman, if we get any volunteers.

[purplepiano.livejournal.com]

I didn't have time / couldn't be bothered to set the songs to music when we did our readthrough, so we just ended up all yelling out the words rhythmically. It wasn't pretty! I'm fairly sure I'm up for this readthrough though, so I could help anyway.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

That would be absolutely wonderful if you could. If you don't get the time or botheredness, though, don't worry in the slightest - we'll manage somehow!

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Yep, that was great fun - twinned with The Beggar's Opera...

[megamole.livejournal.com]

ARGH.

I love this play.

I hate that you're doing it on a Thursday when I can't participate.

:(

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Am very sorry about that - the date hasn't been completely finalised, but if we do it then we (most likely) get the useful venue for free!

[megamole.livejournal.com]

My Captain Mainwaring Bolloximian will not quickly be forgotten by those who heard it...