Cara on Tuesday
What I really want to know AmAl did you enjoy Hamilton? Zoe, was CrimeFest great and where's the report from out South African boys? Susan, when is the next trip to Nihon, and will Jeff look happier in Greece?
Enquiring minds want to know. Meanwhile on Saturday at the Litquake office I did a workshop on Villains, the architect of your story.
My approach took the view of the villain/esse and how s/he engineered the story and events before page 1. How the view from the 'bad' side
set the wheels in motion and going into depth about motive and the unmet desires of the antagonist. Preparing for this helped me in framing my new story, does that happen to any of you?
More questions now. Here is the Cafe le Zimmer next to the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris. During the war the Alsatian owners hid their wine
in one of the caves belowground.
Turns out there are three underground levels of caves. In one of which members of the Police, who were sympathetic to the Resistance, met, plotted and hid people.
According to Cafe Zimmer, several years ago a man from Israel visited. He kept asking if he could see the cave where he was hidden during the war and the staff had no idea. Turns out his hiding place had been bricked up but...is their wine still in there? Enquiring minds want to know.
My approach took the view of the villain/esse and how s/he engineered the story and events before page 1. How the view from the 'bad' side
set the wheels in motion and going into depth about motive and the unmet desires of the antagonist. Preparing for this helped me in framing my new story, does that happen to any of you?
More questions now. Here is the Cafe le Zimmer next to the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris. During the war the Alsatian owners hid their wine
in one of the caves belowground.
Turns out there are three underground levels of caves. In one of which members of the Police, who were sympathetic to the Resistance, met, plotted and hid people.
According to Cafe Zimmer, several years ago a man from Israel visited. He kept asking if he could see the cave where he was hidden during the war and the staff had no idea. Turns out his hiding place had been bricked up but...is their wine still in there? Enquiring minds want to know.
Caves. I love caves! (Guess that proves I'm a guy, no matter what Jeff says...)
ReplyDeleteVillains and Heroes: the boards on either side of the book that hold everything else together in one cohesive (we hope) whole.
Cara, I loved "Hamilton." It is beyond brilliant and deserves all the praise that is being heaped opon it. The material itself is worth of the Pulitzer it has received. But everything about the production is marvelous--costumes, set, staging, choreography. I know. I am gushing. But let me just tell you one detail to prove my point. Even the lighting is spectacular. At one point in the story, Hamilton sings a song called "Hurricane," recalling a disastrous storm of his childhood on Nevis, and contemplating that troubles that are closing in on him from all sides. He is alone on the stage surrounded by concentric circles of bluish, purplish light. As he recounts his fears and dread, the lights slowly closes on him until he is left, washed in a dull spotlight. I never before saw stage lighting so vividly express the inner voice of a character like that. When I stood up at the end I felt as if I had been at one of the first performances of "Tosca." As long as people sing on stages, "Hamilton" will be a classic.
ReplyDeleteI'm smiling now! And it's stories about places like the Zimmer which give me hope that there are decent people out there...some where.
ReplyDeleteTo tack onto AmA's Hamilton praise, my son has become somewhat of a fanatic on the subject, listening to the score virtually everyday I was with him and becoming a student of Hamilton's history. I'd say it's a true phenomenon. Like EvKa. Brrrrrrrrr.
CrimeFest was a delight, as always, Cara. I will formulate a report for another time. Zimmer sounds amazing, btw.
ReplyDelete