[ePub] Old Saint Peter's; Rome (British School at Rome Studies) by From Cambridge University Press at Arts-Photography

Description

Good is a story about a liberal-minded university professor who drifts well-meaningly into a position in the upper reaches of the Nazi administration. It is a profound and alarming examination of passivity and the rationalisation of evil.John Halder; a professor of literature; seems to be a good man; he diligently visits his blind and senile mother and looks after his vacant wife and three children. He is unremarkable; other than an unusual neurotic tic: the imaginary sound of band music plays in the background of his life; particularly at moments of high emotion. But by writing a book ndash; the result of his own experience ndash; discussing euthanasia for senile elderly people and by lecturing on the delicacy of German literary culture; John has unintentionally made himself a very desirable acquisition for the Nazi party.By rationalised and intellectually reasoned steps he is absorbed into the direction of the death camps; a transformation all the more chilling because it does not seem dramatic; until the last horrible resounding note of the play.Good is a structured stream of consciousness; punctured by the musical medley that plays inside Halders head. The first production was staged at the London Warehouse in 1982. And A Nightingale Sang . . . opens on a house in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne filled with well-meant and bustling domestic chaos. Set just before the beginning of the war; the scenes are partly related by Helen; who is stoical and self-deprecating and walks with a limp. Her grandfather Andie is recruiting mourners to attend the burial of his dog; her devout Catholic mother is fretting about the health of the local priest; her father is serenading an unwilling audience with the popular songs that light up the whole play. Joyce; Helens younger; prettier sister is dithering over whether to accept a marriage proposal from Eric; who is being deployed to France. Helen; depended on for guidance by the whole family; has never had any attention from men ndash; until she meets Norman; who shows her that she can waltz and fall in love. But for all the family; nothing can be the same after the war.And A Nightingale Sang . . . was first staged in 1977 by Live Theatre in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne; and was presented in this version at the Queens Theatre; London; in 1979.