tales

Some thoughts on Stravinsky and Ramuz's The Soldier's Tale which I saw last night at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Vancouver.

Boy, what a stupid soldier. He sure got bossed around a lot, and by a bunch of women. The artists chose to cast a woman in the role of The Devil, which had my feminist bones itching. There was something of Fatal Attraction to the whole thing.

The morals, stated at the end instruct us not to want what we used to be, not to desire what we don't have. My friend asked, is there anything wrong with having it all? I don't think it's so much that you're not allowed to have everything (the placement of the moral is subverted by the story continuing after it is stated) rather, you can't have everything at the same time. Moreover, you always want what you don't have, what you had, what you want to have.

And what of the violin, representing art? expression? passion? desire? It is both the saving grace (waking the princess and securing the Soldier his second shot at wealth) and the trap that shuts behind our easily manipulated soldier.

Perhaps our soldier is truly being punished for his ignorance (illiteracy) and lack of independent thought. For being so easily bossed. The only action the Soldier takes in this production is to roll the Devil (exhausted by the Soldier's fiddle playing) one to the feet of the first row of audience members. Perhaps he is being punished for not having an ego? Or for discarding it and his identity so easily when faced with knowledge, riches and sex.

But thinking now, this production is perhaps about death. About choosing, in the end, the thing that will bring us to nothingness, knowing even as we do that it is unfair, volatile and even dangerous. Then, by extension, we reject the known, the safe and easy answers. The sleepy princess is no competition with a feisty, passionate demon.

I loved the red, hoof shoes that Devil was wearing. I covet those shoes. But having said that, I shall beware offers too good to be true...