"House of Troy" in International Theater Amsterdam

My previous experience in DeLaMar Theatre with badly staged "Murder on the Orient Express" was so upsetting that I started to doubt do I even like live stage plays at all - to correct this, I found something that appealed to me and tried to see it & perhaps new experience will erase the bad taste in my mouth. From what I read online, this play was inspired by ancient Greek play "Trojan Women" by Euripides and that was a good sign - at least this will not be the same audience that was going on "Mamma Mia" in DeLaMar Theatre. So I was ready to try something else. 

First I watched 1971. movie filmed in Spain with all-star international cast that included Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Geneviève Bujold - I quite enjoyed it, even though I don't care much for Hepburn and was delighted with great Greek actress Irene Papas as Helen of Troy, I thought she was magnificent and had a true presence. The movie gave me some idea what to expect in the theatre, obviously it is happening after fall of Troy and each of these famous characters represents part of the myth - we can also see them as any female victims of any war, it is quite a timeless piece. 

This time I went with a friend who insisted on having a dinner with dessert & wine before the theatre so we enjoyed our dinner and rolled into a theatre ready to explode (perhaps some self-discipline might be welcome next time around). Even though I had full belly, I was surprisingly awake and alert, because it turned out it was completely in Dutch (I was expecting some subtitles somewhere, after all this is International Theater - luckily I was able to follow it fairly well - it might be that this kept me focused. I enjoyed it very much and thought it was excellent!

First - it was cleverly staged and directed. You don't just bring ancient play in a famous theatre stage and make it another moth-eaten piece: director Mateusz Staniak has everybody in modern clothes and there are just a few props that works perfectly well. To the right are few chairs, these are thrones where main characters sit. To the left is some water with paper ships that represent Greek ships invading Troy - at some point, Cassandra (who nobody listens to) will pour some red liquid into it and make the sea full of blood. In the middle is a pile of ash - these are ashes of everybody who died in the war and during the stage it gets scattered around, a very clever way of explaining the huge number of deaths without actually showing anything. Best of all, there is a large sign that explains when the story unfolds and it is not a linear, start-to-finish play but cleverly it goes from the end to the start, playing with time and showing "5 days before the fall", "2 days before the fall", etc - some scenes are extremely short, other much longer. It is all about how the characters perceived the war and what could have been done to prevent it. Each step back in time, as a flashback, is indicated by a flash of darkness accompanied by heavy electronic music.

As expected, female roles are excellent - for me, the best was Elsie de Brauw as Queen Hecuba - when Greeks suddenly retreat and leave a strange wooden horse behind, it is Hecuba almost giddy with relief, who insist to open the city gates and bring the horse inside, break the gates if you must. She ends wearing black coat and scarf, while carrying the urn with the ashes of her son Hector. There is also a strong-headed Cassandra (Laura De Geest) with her unruly teenaged sister Polyxena (Mona Lahousse) who is tired of everybody always talking about the war. A pregnant Andromache (Nadia Amin) is widow of Hector and after the fall will be just another slave. There are also two young actors playing Paris and his brother Polydoros, neither of them fascinating as female characters as mother hen Hecuba basically pushed them around. The interesting aspect of the story was someone that everybody was talking about but the characters was nowhere to be seen - Helen of Troy, the reason for the war itself - eventually Hecuba admits that she never even existed and that Helen was just a story. I left the theatre giddy with excitement and impressions. 

My aquarium

 

Did you know that fishes LOVE green peas? If you only give them dry food they will get constipated, so from time to time its good for them to eat something fresh. Green peas must be cooked/steamed and you must peel the skin that fishes can't eat. The mushy part is like de luxe dinner for fishes and it will help their digestion.

This is how my fishes greet me every morning. They are very excited because they expect food from me. So yes, there is definitely some kind of communication/recognition. This is my large aquarium at home.

A Fish Called Ray

 

Inspired by a friend whose apartment I usually take care for when he is on vacation and who has several most beautiful aquariums, at certain point last year i decided to have my own aquarium. It serves as a fulfilment of the need for the pet but without necessary mess of ether dog or cat. Initially I bought a small, 30 litre aquarium that made me very happy but eventually moved my fishes to much bigger, new home that gives them proper space. The old, small aquarium is now at my work where I still fuss over it, with new fishes there. 

I am naturally most attached to the first fishies that I got. At this point I have a dozen fishes and each of them was carefully selected by their gender and colour - so I can easily tell them apart and recognise who is who. Some, like my namesake, even grew and changed their colouring. My all-time favourite is the prettiest little bright orange boy whom I called Ray and who had his own, lovely personality. When Ray and his two buddies were transferred into a new, big aquarium, they were initially always swimming together in their little group because they were scared of this large new space - later I bought them several female "wives" and watched with amusement when Ray would follow them and puff himself up to look bigger, he is just the most adorable little fish boy. He would also always react when I would come near the tank and beg for the food. I always made sure that fishes are well fed, the water changed and was constantly fussing over the plants, decorations, etc. It would make me very happy to see my aquarium pretty and fishes inside swimming up and down, playing with each other.

Sadly, Ray has died yesterday. He was perfectly fine in the morning but was lying on the bottom of aquarium in the evening when the automatic light comes on and I usually give them food. I was affected much more than I expected and even cried - I am still crying as I write this - I placed him gently in a paper tissue and buried him on the bottom of a flower pot, I think this was nicest thing i could have done. I have no idea why exactly he has died, since all the other fishes are perfectly fine and the quality of the water is regularly tested, perhaps it was just his time (they apparently live just a short little lives). 

To some, the grief I feel for my little fish friend might seem exaggerated - but it made me think that this is exactly why as a species we are so unique. We are not just going trough life hunting for food and shelter, we react and the way we react on things around us is what makes our lives so rich and unique. It is because we are moved by the joy of love, friendship and company that we are humans. I always cried when my pets would die and little Ray deserves my affections since he gave me lots of joy and beauty, on my side I am satisfied that I gave him a beautiful home with enough space and plants, so surely he was a lucky little guy. Come to think fo it, my fishes have nobody else but me so yes, I do care about them and love them. We might be just a tiny ripple in time but its because we share this love and affection, it makes it all worth and special. One day my time will also come and I hope that someone will  miss me. 

"The Year 1000" exhibition in National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

Far more than badly directed (and played) comic twist on Agatha Christie, I enjoyed an exhibition titled "The Year 1000" and presented in Leiden's glorious National Museum of Antiquities - probably the most exciting archeological museum I have ever seen anywhere in the world. I do have some authority here since I sailed around the world for 15 years and have visited many museums in different countries, this one in Leiden is by far the best. 

The exhibition was titled "The Year 1000" and it was meant to cover The Netherlands but it soon became obvious that its scope was much bigger - perhaps there were simply not so many saved artefacts from Medieval lowlands - so eventually we got little stories from many different parts of the world and some explanations what kind of world it was around year 1 000. What left the biggest impression on me was a screen with a movie of night sky - full of comets and stars, constantly moving but somehow always the same, almost immortal - combined with the contemporary writings of monks excitedly mentioning strange, mysterious things in the skies and what it could possibly mean (for many of them now we understand they were comets or Northern Lights, not a harbinger of Divine's wrath). It was a world totally different from ours (for one thing, religion was a big part of daily life in many aspects) but we as a humans have hardly changed at all. So it was like a peek into a time machine, where this same night sky is constantly same but our perception of it changed a lot.  

"Murder on the Orient Express" in DeLaMar Theatre

It seemed like a good idea - the poster was instantly identifiable and we both agreed it might be cool to actually get out of the house and do what real people do, visit a theatre. The fact that it was all in Dutch did not scare me, I thought at this point my command of Dutch should be sufficient and in fact we both excitedly waited Saturday as a day when we will treat ourselves.

Instead, we found ourselves squeezed in a packed auditorium and surrounded by fairly provincial audience who did not even bothered to dress up just a little differently from their casual shopping in a supermarket. I knew Dutch can be very casual but this was just annoying, it takes away from the whole experience. We felt like we are the only ones who actually made an effort. My friend disliked the minimalistic stage but I didn't mind, having just a few props (moved around by actors themselves) worked for me and it forced the production to be more creative. Unfortunately, the director obviously insisted on some sort of forced comedy so Agatha Christie's famous whodunit was presented as a over-indulgent salon comedy where everything was exaggerated to the point of almost parody. Everybody (starting from Remko Vrijdag as Hercule Poirot ) over-acted very badly in order to get some laugh from the audience but we were not amused. These things can not be forced. And it suddenly reminded me on a few occasions when I visited local theatre, just to notice how everything was over-baked for my taste.

It might be a cultural difference. I always found a stage acting a bit too much to take (even in my own country, it was insufferable) and preferred a natural, relaxed, non-acting style much more than what I perceive Kabuki style that projects to the balcony. Perhaps this naturalistic style works very well for the camera but theatre has its own rules and most of the time I think its exaggerated. I can accept it in music performance but it kills my enjoyment of the theatre. All this clowning done to appeal to the totally non-demanding audiences, its not for me. We just couldn't wait to return home. 

"Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal and Survival in Hitler's Germany" by Peter Wyden (1992)

 

I saw this book in a souvenir shop of the Berlin's Jewish Museum - it attracted me instantly and I made a mental note to find it later. It took me forever to actually put my hands on the book that is out of print and difficult to find but once I started reading it, I could not put it down. It was very gripping and the last few chapters were particularly interesting as they discuss various psychological aspects and post-traumatic behaviour of not only war survivors but their children as well. I should probably go back and re-read them again. 

The unusual subject of the story - a Jewish woman collaborating with Nazis and hunting other Jews in a wartime Berlin - combined with clumsy but earnest writing (the author is bursting with a desire to tell this story, so it might appear unpolished) made for a gripping read. It is a very serious subject, documented with a real-life characters and places - on top of this, there is quite a lot of soul-searching as Wyden constantly goes back to his idealised school crush Stella who has in the meantime became a symbol of evil. Or survival? Wyden is aware that nothing is black-and-white and often asks himself what would HE do if he was in the same situation. And there is a very the thin line between being simply a opportunist (like a nurse Elly who had a relationship with Nazi Dobberke, but had not hurt anyone) and a full-blown collaborator (like Stella who had actually hunting people and sending them to Auschwitz). 

Wyden twists himself in a pretzel trying to understand how can someone like Stella send people to their deaths and still continue to live, apparently satisfied with herself - there is this monumental discussion of guilt and survival - but here I must put my own five cents in: I went trough a war myself. And with all the darkness and fear around me, I have never ever lost the sight of my moral compass and never hurt anybody, in fact I was always perfectly polite to civilians because this is who I am and forever will be. I understand there will always be some who will protect their own skin, but this is how the world turns, I am not one of them and refuse to accept something that is morally wrong and offensive. There were others, also arrested and tortured like Stella, who refused to collaborate with Gestapo and rather went to Auschwitz - so she is more of a crooked exception than a example. 

"Poor Things" by Yorgos Lanthimos (2023)

 

In retrospective, I should just not even bother.

When my original cinema partner suddenly cancelled what was the perfect Sunday plan, I found myself stuck with cinema tickets and restaurant reservation. And since Virgo's love to plan everything in advance, this was extremely frustrating because I had this outing in mind the whole week before that. When person B started requesting different screening time, it became even more problematic. At the end I end up dragging my poor other half (who has all sorts of stomach problems at the moment and is not a good cinema company), cancelling the restaurant and basically changing the whole damn plan. And the cinema was full of obnoxious people who could not find their seats, talked loud amongst themselves and basically were just a nuisance. 

And the film - oh the film was so hyped as the best thing ever and judging by some critics, even best film of the year. Fear not, it is not. It is luxuriously wrapped (in spectacular cinematography) overblown saga that combines elements of Frankenstein with Kaspar Hauser with some pro-feministic philosophy added as a spice. It boasts well known and bankable talents of Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo plus some beautiful cameos by Hanna Schygulla (random passenger on a cruise ship) and Kathryn Hunter ( a bordello madame). It follows Stone as some sort of Frankenstein-creature who escapes the confinement of her maker's elegant home and goes to experience the adventures with horny Mark Ruffalo in tow. It starts quite good (all black & white) than turns into full MGM cinemascope fantasy once Stone enters the world but after a while you realise that the movie just meanders without any effective purpose expect to shock the audiences with never ending visual gimmicks and insistence on perpetual upsetting of the audience with more nudity, more cunnilingus, etc. 

The movie would honestly gain from shorter screening time and better editing - if the director Yorgos Lanthimos focused more on a straightforward story instead of piling up special effects and more sex jokes, perhaps it would be more bearable - I found myself constantly looking at the watch, feeling bad for my sick partner (and his rumbling stomach) and it was annoying to realise that all this mega-hype resulted in a stone faced audience and the only people in the cinema who were actually entertained were some teenagers who probably thought all this sex jokes were so cool and funny. I just did not find it funny at all - the character of Emma Stone is basically a revived zombie who finds herself learning how to walk, talk and behave, in the process she also discovers the joys of sex & masturbation and most of the jokes come from her bluntness about it (usually in the public places). As she grabs every fruit and vegetable from the dinner table and stuff it inside herself, the audience is initially shocked but it gets tiresome after a while and I just did not find it nor funny nor entertaining. I apologised to my cinema partner (suffering in silence and not laughing once) as we left the cinema. critics loved it, I did not. Not the first time it happens. 

Books, books and more books!

Thanks to a website Goodreads where occasionally I check out the recommendations and keep my own list of how much I read, the self-imposed number of 12 books per year was accomplished in 2023. To be honest, that was not even particularly large number but it seemed reasonable, after giving myself much higher numbers previously and than it made me feel disappointed when it did not happen. The success of last year, inspired me to lift it up slightly and instead of 12 this year I gave myself 24 books to read. I don't think its difficult and in fact, I am doing perfectly well so far, in fact I am on the track and its not even half of February. Streisand 1000-page autobiography took a while but I continued and added a few more titles.

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) is now known more as a classic film noir but once upon a time it was a book. And not just any book, but a scandalous and shocking bestseller that people bought because it was all about sex and deviant behaviour and lovers who not only plot how to kill the husband but also enjoy sort of brutal sex that reflects how violent they were (in minds of the audience). I don't remember the movie but the book was not bad, except that naturally today is not so scandalous anymore - there is still some interesting atmosphere and chilling coldheartedness about the lovers plan, in fact both of them are nasty piece of work, by far the nicest person in the book is actually a husband who is purposely made to be annoying but actually he is a sweetheart. I mean, his only sin is that he is Greek and sweet-natured. 

"Childhood's End" (1953) is a very highly regarded book by SF master Arthur C. Clarke - with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein he is celebrated as genius of science fiction genre. Which made him intimidating to me and I always expected his books might be too technical for me - you know, when they go into elaborate description of the space ships and you feel like an idiot for not understanding any of it - this one was a safe bet because it grew out of the popular short story he wrote in 1950 and than enlarged into a book version several years later. Its about the arrival of alien space ships on Earth and how their seemingly friendly, peaceful and harmless intentions eventually turn much darker than initially perceived. It was actually quite gripping because this is more or less how I always imagined aliens to be - benevolent at first but in reality still totally alien to us. Quite excellent, this one.

"From the Dust Returned" (2001) was incidental choice because I decided to read a horror for a change - completely coincidentally it was by another SF genius Ray Bradbury and he also created it out of previously published short story.  Also it was not horror at all but a very, very beautiful dark fantasy collection, tailored for a Halloween reading - dark but not disturbing, simply beautiful. Its about a old house inhabited by all sorts of magic creatures and how they live in a complete harmony, hidden from the outside world - there is a real Egyptian mummy ("“A Thousand Times Great Grandmère"), her husband, a magic spider, a magic cat, winged Uncle Einar, perpetually sleeping visionary Cecy who can enter other people's bodies in her sleep, etc, etc - and a little human boy Timothy. Its just a beautiful book, written in a style that is just breathtaking. I didn't mind it being a collection of obviously short stories because they were all beautiful and somehow connected. I thought it was interesting that magic creatures feared that their powers will diminish since humans refuse to believe in them any longer, this was kind of idea that Neil Gaiman used for his excellent "American Gods".

"The Zone of Interest" by Jonathan Glazer (2023)

 

Well, this was unusual. And heavy enough to put you in a coma.

Because my other half loves to read and watch everything about the Holocaust, it was inevitable that eventually we will go to cinema to see this - I made a point of not reading anything about it so I will have no preconceptions or expectations, I was totally tabula rasa and even prepared to suffer trough German movie with Dutch subtitles (at this point I am fluent enough in Dutch to actually follow the subtitles without problem). We went on a afternoon projection and apparently this movie is so successful that there was much more audience than I expected, evening projections must be packed.

First we encounter a family picnicking along the river - cleverly, we see them only in a swimwear and witness their bickering, family like any family in the world. Boys are splashing in the water, girls are screaming, mother says follow me this way. Its when the clothes are on, that you realise this is a family of Nazi officer and his household is served by some shadowy, terrified staff. Everything about the house is otherwise neat - there is a beautiful garden, rooms are spacious, everything is very clean and polished, there is even a happy dog barking around. The mother-in-law arrives for a visit and here we find out that this is not originally house of this family, because she is very surprised and delighted with such an opulence - if the family lived here before, she would not be so surprised. Eventually she cannot help but notice the big chimneys and smoke just across the barbed wire fence - there are sounds of shots, people screaming, there are fires and smokes on the other side. Slowly in dawns on bot her and the audience that there is a concentration camp just across the wall - in fact this is Auschwitz and the head of this family is no other but Rudolf Höss (real-life commandant of Auschwitz) - the mother in law is so horrified with what she witnesses, that she leaves the house without even saying goodbye and the note she left behind is unceremoniously tossed in the fire - her daughter has no such scruples and all she cares about it staying in this beautiful house, even when her husband is promoted and sent elsewhere. 

The strongest twist in this movie is that it looks at Auschwitz from a completely new perspective - focusing on a Nazi commandant and his family, not showing anything from a concentration camp but we can hear the sounds - shots, yelling, people screaming in pain, we can see the smoke and fire coming out of the enormous chimneys just above the walls surrounding the house where family lives. Somehow not seeing it but only hearing it makes it even more oppressive, even more ominous. Does the family feels anything about their role? The wife is clearly besotted with the house and the luxury, she has no doubts. Children are curious but learned to hide behind the curtains. And the commandant himself is focused, ambitious and strong - but there is occasional sign that he is perfectly aware of everything, even when he repeatedly retches and is disturbed to find human remains in the river where family swims. Everything about this movie is so haunting. 

Photo of the day

Children listening radio programme "Toddlers listen" (1946-1975)

In the broadcast, which lasted 10 minutes, stories were told and songs were sung with children.

Lily Petersen's famous opening line was: "Hello children from all over the country".

"Georgetown" by Christoph Waltz (2019)

 

A glorious little psychological thriller that somehow escaped my attention in 2019 (or was probably lost in a chaos of 2020) and it brings the wondrous talents of villainous Christoph Waltz (who also directs it) and  Vanessa Redgrave. of course, I remember Waltz from his spectacular turn in "Inglourious Basterds" where he eclipsed everybody else as a Jew hating Gestapo officer and it seems that from than on he is typecast as a sociopathic antagonist. To my knowledge, this is the first time that he directs a movie and apparently this role fascinated him enough to put all his energy into creating it - obviously he found the role fitting his abilities. 

The script is based on a real-life story of elderly journalist Elsa Breht (Redgrave) who somehow got seduced by much younger, ambitious Ulrich Mott (Waltz) who correctly assumes that she might be his connection to influential political circles of Washington. Once he slither in her house, she helps him to get acquainted with people who matter - diplomats, political advisers, ex-presidents, etc. To dismay of Breht's daughter (Annette Bening) the relationship apparently flourishes until Breht has been found dead at the staircase and the police eventually decides to have a closer look at it - initially they are not suspicious because of Breht's age but they found documented her previous complaint about the physical abuse and this makes them to have a closer look at her much younger husband who is all about bravado and boasting.

Its easy to see what did Christoph Waltz found in this role because its almost as made for him - he is supposed to be earnest charmer who swindles everybody around him and somehow wiggles his way into high society. There is a constant shadow of malice underneath his smiles and charm that no one is aware of (except Benning, of course but she is too one-dimensional herself). Redgrave is supernatural joy to behold, she is hundred years old and still beautiful in her own way, camera absolutely adores her and she glows in a new found love for her young suitor. If there is one weak link, its the very underdeveloped role of her daughter who really has nothing else to do but just be angry all the time - for this you don't need a Oscar winning actress and I am left with suspicion that Annette Bening was pulled in simply as a famous name bait - it does nothing for her career or for the movie itself. The most fascinating character is Waltz who turns out such a maniac that is completely lost in his own delusions.

"Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve)" by J. A. Bayona (2023)

 

I was vaguely aware of famous 1972 plane crash where survivors ended up eating their dead, but never saw a 1993 movie or read any of the subsequent books written about the accident. Still, the trailer looked good and pretty exciting so I decided to give it a try. It turned into very gripping movie with one of the most terrifying plane crash scenes in a move ever (right up next to the one in "Cast away") - the best of all, it left such a strong impression on me that I thought about it even this morning as I woke up. 

What is it that makes this story still so powerful?

First, the whole improbability of the plane crash itself - we don't enter the rinky dinky planes expecting something bad will happen, in fact as much as I don't enjoy them, I just want to get over the whole journey and get to my destination as soon as possible. I flew a lot, I flew across Atlantic, across Asia all the way to Australia and it was never the big planes that gave me troubles but the small ones where somehow you feel unsafe. This was one of the small planes, with only 45 people onboard. Than we have adventure story without special heroes - these were just ordinary people, literary young rugby players traveling to their next match. Well maybe not so ordinary than, because these young guys were still fitter and braver than most of ordinary people - I could not help but noticing that my own 54 self would probably die immediately one way or another. 

And than of course - the most gruesome part, eating of the dead. Movie makes it clear that it wasn't done without previous long agonising and finally only accepted when they heard on the radio that search was being cancelled and no other help was coming. I think that the most of us will agree that no matter how ugly and impossible this seems, it might be at least understand from the perspective of survivors - alone in a snow covered mountains, there is literary nothing else to eat except the corpses. And its up to you, do you want to live or are you ready to die because of some previous preconceptions. After all, different things are accepted in different parts of the world. Ancient warriors would eat the brains & hearts of their victims, believing it would make them braver. (In a somehow lesser gruesome manner, I am still cooking the chicken soup the way every household in Croatia has always done, with chitterlings, apparently its not done here and everybody is disgusted with me) What makes this really bad is that there was no cooking or boiling or somehow camouflaging the whole thing, they could not cover it with herbs and spices and pretend its something else - there was no pots and pans, not even fire, only several volunteers who went out in the snow and cut the frozen corpses with some sharp piece of glass. 

The movie turned out to be excellent - it stayed with me for a long time. I am now ready to watch some more documentaries and find some books about it, because there is much more to know. For example, the fact that cannibalism was first hidden from the public but when it became known, it created such a worldwide sensation that eventually even church got involved and accepted that this is not a sin because it was extreme survival situation. 

"My Name Is Barbra" by Barbra Streisand (2023)

 

Streisand vibrates on her own frequency and to read her own life story as told in her own words comes  still as surprise (even though I followed her for decades and enjoyed her work forever) - for the start, her attention to details is so obsessive that it often comes as exasperating. This might work well on creating album covers or movie scenes and such, but when it comes to storytelling, it leaves you as a reader in a bit of confusion - does it really matter was the price for the cinema ticket back in the day $ 1.89 or $ 1.98? She is describing her teenage years and zooms into such odd little informations that it eventually distracts from the big picture. But than you come at the chapter where she describes how "Funny Girl" was created and you simply have to stop in awe and say to yourself "This is Streisand herself describing how Funny Girl was made". 

The book itself is huge - my hard cover counts almost 1 000 pages and at the moment I am on page 443 so there is still a lot to go - but my initial impression is that this is strictly for fans: it is too detailed for casual readers who might not be interested in every little technical detail of camera, lightning and concert settings from 1968. The sheer size of the story is occasionally exhausting and I find myself wandering away and losing focus (than again, it might be because I am terribly sick with cold) but it feels as this might be book to return later and perhaps enjoy reading simply a random chapter. 

Some observations:

We all know that people were not nice to her in the beginning, in fact, it is stuff of the legends now. But Streisand herself did not forget and she names every agent, every producer, every director who rejected, abused or laughed at her. You would think that after all that success she would simply leave it behind, but she is not that kind of person - although she does not linger too much on it, she wants you to know that she never forgot. 

When success finally came, it was not given: she worked hard for it. I just realised that her legendary TV specials were filmed at the same time when she performed 8 shows a week in "Funny Girl" and than would go to TV studio and film TV shows after midnight. And made it look so sensational like she is enjoying herself and every minute of it. 

Streisand might be a strong personality and she was certainly always aware that her movies were built around her but she also needed a strong collaborators. She describes filming of "On a clear day you can see forever" and how it distracted her to see the fear in the eyes of one of her co-actors. 

For all her talk about acting, Lee Strasberg and "the method", she is still first and foremost a musical comedienne who happened to break into movies. I don't have impression that she takes her music talent seriously as much as she thinks of herself as Sarah Bernhardt reincarnated. 

I am not even halfway yet, so there is more to come. 

25/01

I have finished the book last night. It started very exciting but at 966 pages its definitely too long & detailed and I could not help but think that a proper editor would probably cut this brick in half and simply eliminate all the maddening details. My impression is that publishers were too excited to get a book out of her and would not dare to edit anything in case she changes her mind. But this is essentially who Streisand is - an extremely fussy, fastidious artist who needs the excitement of constantly pushing herself and her collaborators into over-thinking, over-analysing and second-guessing until some agreement is finalised. It is strange why she functions like this, since she has constantly been mega-successful trough decades, its almost as she don't understand that work can be done spontaneously and joyously. I found an article where Frank Pierson (the director of "A Star Is Born") actually tells her: "All you have to do is offer to sing and they'll fall all over you to do a picture. Why are you trying to panic yourself this way?"

Even though I am a lifelong fan of her music, her movies were too sporadic to take her seriously as an actress. After reading this book its obvious that she did her best movie work while she was under legal obligations to producer Ray Stark who twisted her arm into doing "Funny Girl", "The Owl and the Pussycat", "The Way We Were" and "Funny Lady" - once she was free from the contract, her movies became more laboured and extremely rare. And what really strikes me interesting again and again is how little she thinks of her music talent (it comes too easily to her so she does not analyse it at all) but goes on and on about her movies to the point of coming across as overbearing: she writes not one but three chapters about "Yentl" and at the end I just had to skip this part. But that is essentially who she is. 

There was one interesting moment when I had the feeling that she really opened her heart. She mentions a passionate love affair with one of her collaborators and admits that it eventually fizzled away. "Although there were moments, especially when the jacaranda trees were in bloom again, when I would be reminded of Peter and that singular summer." 

Another eye-opening thought was that even someone so enormously successful as Streisand can be blocked and prevented when it comes to creating a new work. There were enormous obstacles thrown at her almost each time she wanted to do another movie or album project, to the point where one can almost see her crying out in frustration: "I had been with Columbia for twenty-three years. I had made twenty-three albums (and ten soundtrack or compilation albums) for them. And now, after five number 1 albums and seven Grammy awards and millions of dollars in record sales, I basically had to sell myself again. It was actually kind of humiliating."  Towards the end of the book you get the impression that she is too exhausted and heartbroken over so many cancelled projects, that she probably won't work in the movies again. It would really be sad if the new generations will know her only from something as "Meet the Fockers".