12/14/01 Ralph Talks about UNICEF Efforts
Thanks to Freya for relaying this story from the Telegraph:
I believe the children must
win
(Filed: 14/12/2001)
Ralph
Fiennes is inspired by the work being done for victims of conflict by Unicef,
a beneficiary of this year's Telegraph appeal
STANDING in the aisles of Unicef's warehouse in Copenhagen, I feel hopeful.
On either side of me, sturdy metal shelving reaches 40 feet high and extends
the length of two football pitches. Stacked high are box after box of emergency
supplies.
Each box carries a label with its destination. It's like reading a roll call of disaster: Sudan, Kosovo, Somalia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone. There's no mention of Afghanistan, because emergency supplies are continually being flown there and there's no time for them to rest on a shelf.
These boxes contain essential supplies for childcare and health. There are maternity kits, vaccines, sterilisation equipment, rehydration tablets, blankets, generators.
Ralph Fiennes in Unicef's Copenhagen warehouse, surrounded by the aid boxes that offer hope for children. 'Somewhere, a child's ideas can live,' he says
The crisis in Afghanistan claims the most attention at the moment. Twenty-four Unicef flights have left Copenhagen since September. While we were here, a 25th flight was loading up. But while other countries that need emergency support are off the front page, the continual flow of supplies to them doesn't stop.
The campaign for "awareness" goes on. With the photographer, Tom Craig, and Alison Tilbe from Unicef UK, we are being shown the works - it's extremely impressive. Our host is Deirdre O'Shea; her natural warmth and enthusiasm have made us feel extremely welcome.
I know she receives many visitors and is well practised at reeling off information and statistics. I feel a little dizzy trying to unravel facts and figures, trying to make a picture of them. Of course, it's very clear - all over the world, not just in Afghanistan, thousands of children suffer and are neglected. Poverty, disease, Aids, war and natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods are the culprits, one often linked to another.
News reports can overwhelm us. We can be appalled, we can sympathise. But what is hard to grasp is the sense that, at this moment, people are working, organising - not just at an executive level, but on the floor, in the warehouse. A man is packing a box of oral rehydration tablets; maternity kits are being prepared; education kits are being packed. And somewhere, tomorrow, those boxes will be unpacked and a child with life-threatening diarrhoea will be saved, a baby will be born in more hygienic circumstances, a girl will receive her first exercise book and her first pencil.
Just over a year ago, I flew to Uganda to look at the work Unicef is doing to combat the Aids epidemic. I met many extraordinary women and men, doctors and teachers. At a school outside Kampala, students performed scenes from Sara - a comic strip African heroine whose adventures are designed to entertain and instruct. Usually, Sara alerts her friends to an Aids danger - a predatory male or a naive boyfriend. The Ugandan children performed with relish.
At Bundebugyo, a camp for internally displaced persons on the Uganda/Congo border, I met children whose schools were tents or simply a corrugated roof. These children live in fear of being kidnapped by marauding militia, who would force them to be killers. Bundebugyo exists because families are clustering together for safety. Sanitation, health and water supply are big concerns. But these children were quiet, attentive and eager for contact.
Education is being prioritised by Unicef. Not just emergency schooling, post-crisis, but in the long term. Alan Court, director of Unicef's supply division, stresses the importance of providing children with an environment of "normalcy". Different crises in different cultures throw up mammoth problems. What is "normalcy" to a boy in Afghanistan, I ask myself? What is it to a girl in Kosovo? I don't know, but it's a vast remove from anything I've ever experienced.
Unicef's education initiative does not seek to impose, but to initiate and integrate. It does, however, aim to address the huge bias towards education for boys at the expense of girls in so many cultures. It begins with the "school in a box". This is a 40lb aluminium trunk containing pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, exercise books, slates, paper scissors and blackboard paint.
In Copenhagen, we admire a display version of the box; each costs $285. Within an hour or so of receiving it, a teacher can turn a piece of wood or metal into a blackboard and take the children through their first words or sums - perhaps their first ideas. When the contents of the box are depleted, or have run out, the teachers are supposed to replace them with local supplies. Communities are encouraged to become independent.
After the school in a box, there is Unicef's "fun in a box". This is more sport oriented: skittles, footballs, volleyballs, powdered chalk to mark out a pitch. So, this time, instead of the blackboard, I imagine a dusty piece of turf marked out for a game of football. Will the girls join in? Are they allowed to join in? To my mind, this recreation box has a slight male bias - but not everyone agrees.
"Girls play soccer," Deirdre insists. But she goes on to illustrate the terrible bias against education for girls and women in so many countries. One statistic is that two out of every three children not in schools are girls.
Unicef wants to encourage a sense of stability for a child. These are things I have taken for granted. In my own family, my sisters are the strong ones. I have to make personal connections here - first remembering my own childhood and the attention granted to my imagination. I see it repeated when my nephew Titan is rapt by the story of Hamlet, or my nieces, buoyant with freedom and energy, want to play mischievously and without fear, with spontaneous, God-given chutzpah.
Recently, Hana Loftus, the 21-year-old daughter of some friends, produced a highly mature production of Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw. This is an opera I find deeply disturbing. The adult world, in the form of unhappy, malign ghosts, encroaches, corrupts and destroys the children's prerogative of innocence. Essentially, the children's individual momentum towards knowledge is taken from them. In the face of the ghosts' oppression, particularly that of the male spirit Peter Quint, their teacher is helpless.
Remembering the faces of children that Unicef is helping - children who have all the potential to breathe freely with their imagination and acquired knowledge - I am reminded of what Peter Quint can represent. It is the adult world become obsessive, manipulative, violent and intolerant. It is the forces of bigoted politics, war and, of course, religious extremism.
I reflect on the current situation in Afghanistan, and I believe, angrily, that the aid agencies must win. The children must win.
I watch one "school in a box" glide down from its shelf on a forklift truck. It is put on to an aeroplane. It could travel to Sudan, to Macedonia or Uganda - but I imagine it in Afghanistan. After vaccines, food and sanitation have been dealt with, the box can be opened. Somewhere in Afghanistan, a child's ideas, a girl's ideas, can live. Imagination is free.
Unicef, Children of Conflict is part of this year's Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal. The other charities are Demelza House Children's Hospice and The Princess Royal Trust for Carers. Donations can be sent to PO Box 45, Colchester CO2 8JQ. Make cheques payable to the Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal; please specify which charity you wish your donation to go to or whether it should be divided between all three. Credit card donations can be made by calling 0870 8303 428.
12/05/01 Fiennes gets fired up for Uni's 'Dragon' (thanks to Bella on the forum for this tip)
Hollywood Reporter
by Zorianna Kit
Dec. 05, 2001
Ralph Fiennes has been cast in the title role of Universal Pictures' "Red Dragon" for director Brett Ratner and producers Dino and Martha De Laurentiis. The project is scheduled to go into production next month. Anthony Hopkins is reprising his role as psychiatrist-cannibal Hannibal Lecter for the film, which is based on Thomas Harris' 1981 best-selling crime-thriller novel of the same name. Edward Norton and Emily Watson also star (HR 8/16). Last month, Harvey Keitel, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mary-Louise Parker came aboard (HR 11/19). Ted Tally adapted the screenplay, which centers on a serial killer called Red Dragon (Fiennes) who is on the loose, bringing FBI agent Will Graham (Norton) out of retirement because he has a special talent for catching such killers. Fiennes, repped by CAA, next stars in David Cronenberg's feature "Spider." He most recently starred in "The End of the Affair," "Sunshine" and "Onegin."(Zorianna Kit)
11/06/01 Ralph Finally Does A Comedy!
Apparently Ralph took part in a play directed by
Kenneth Branagh. You can see pics from the play at
this URL..
http://www.peoplenews.com/cosmic2/0,3430,1-7539-24,00.html
Here's
the article:
In the words of Kenneth Branagh, last night Ralph
Fiennes 'just surrendered himself to the comedy'. The
comedy in question is The Play What I Wrote, directed by Ken and starring
duo The Right Size, aka Sean Foley
and Hamish McColl, with assistance from the lovely
Toby Jones. In tribute to Morecambe and Wise, the boys
get down to putting on a play - but disaster; fourth
player Sir Ian McKellen is still in the pub. So who
should fill in but Ralph Fiennes? Celebrities are
queueing up for the Eric'n'Ernie tradition of guest
star, with performances changing every week. Victoria
Beckham and Kylie Minogue are just some of the other
renowned thespians gagging to tread the boards at theWyndham theatre. Meanwhile,
the rest of us will haveto queue for tickets and hope for the whooping,
cheering audience of last night, that included a
particularly vocal Francesca Annis, Cat Deeley,
Jonathan Wilkes and half of Ant and Dec. Is this the
new Art?
Here's another article from Freya on the forum:
From today's (6 November) Evening Standard
*********************************************
Comic
find in Fiennes
The
Play What I Wrote
Dir: Kenneth Branagh.Sean Foley, Hamish McColl, Toby Jones
By Nicholas de Jongh
Until last night I would not have believed the Shakespearian actor Ralph Fiennes had a funny bone in his body. How wrong I was. For Mr Fiennes, the "surprise guest celebrity" in this show by the Right Size comedy duo, Hamish McColl and Sean Foley, gave the brief evening of things farcical, fast and funnyish, an invigorating dose of satire. He did so by sending up what he knows best - that's to say himself.
It was a delight to see Fiennes, giving himself a dressing-down while attired in a matinee idol's dressing-gown and later, in a fully-fledged dress, worn to the manner born. His role, that of "Sir Ralph Fiennes" condescending from a great height to take part in Hamish McColl's very own French Revolution drama, A Tight Squeeze For The Scarlet Pimple, was a delicious, comic lesson in self-mockery.
Fiennes played dead straight in comic circumstances. John Gielgud used to do something similar. It may have been perverse, amidst a first-night crowd of blissed-out members of the Right Size's unofficial fan club, to find Fiennes the funniest thing around. But I did, even while admiring the spooky way in which Sean Foley raises the ghost of Eric Morecambe, mimicking his looks and manners - right down to the face-slapping. Fiennes, wearing that look of frosty hauteur which he has made his own, is dragged into the Right Size's rather straggling script, written by the duo with help from Morecambe and Wise's scriptwriter, Eddie Braben. There he stands, all misplaced elegance, only to be accused by Foley of being a drunk who's gate-crashed the stage or, ultimate indignity, Rolf Harris himself.
The show's title refers to a stupid little something written by Hamish McColl's character, who plays the vulnerable, sensitive straightman to Sean Foley's brusque loudmouth who does the funny walk. Perhaps, suggests Foley, in the role of the blustering conman, his partner
shouldn't worry about being unfunny. Since Hamish sounds eager to retire to
Eastbourne what better way of averting the move than allowing him the chance
of putting on his play? For the duo, seen first and last in a standup bed,
play characters caught in a homosocial if not homoerotic bind of mutual need.
The brief first half, taken at sensibly brisk pace by slick director Kenneth Branagh, is an inconsequential, absurd rag-bag of jokes visual and verbal, cracks, innuendos and double entendres. Later airs of inspired lunacy infect the stage-space. Small, podgy Toby Jones, who's played a dog and the fool, tries to pass himself off as "Sir Ralph Fiennes" only to be discomfited by the real thing himself. "I am Ralph Fiennes," he announces, all grand and demanding, while McColl smarmingly ingratiates himself with the expected guest."
To see Fiennes's stiff, prim star personality plunged into the hectic vulgarities of McColl's melodrama, with its dungeon, guillotine and skeletons, is bizarre fun. Declaiming random gobbets of Shakespeare and Dickens, Fiennes clings to seriousness while anarchy reigns and at curtain call staggers on like some exhausted Shakespearian. He's just the first of the surprise guest stars - another follows on tonight. But though Foley and McColl are brilliant slap-stick pranksters, their Morecambe and Wise routines are strictly for their legions of afficionados. The likes of Fiennes will provide necessary first-aid and reinforcement.
09/11/01
Ralph News from the Toronto Film Festival
LOUIE DE FILIPPIS PHOTOS
HE'S EVERYWHERE: Ralph Fiennes, lurks behind Gabriel Byrne at a Rosedale house
party Sunday afternoon.
AS A public service, I'm not removing my sunglasses.
I'm thinking of having them surgically attached. By day six of the fest, there is a look about the eyes like frayed socks.
Here's a short cut we've discovered during the last five days: If you want to know where the parties are, follow Ralph Fiennes. He is marginally more ubiquitous than Lou Gossett Jr. and Judd Nelson.
On Saturday night, he was at Bistro 990. On Sunday afternoon, Fiennes was in attendance at a party in a lavish Rosedale residence thrown for the David Cronenberg film Spider, which Fiennes is shooting here in T.O. with Gabriel Byrne.
Sunday night, Fiennes was at the exclusive party at Rain held by Serendipity Films in honour of their fest film Picture Claire. Claire herself, Juliette Lewis, was a no show.
Star Gazing even managed to weasel our way into the hallowed VIP area, which was the size of a playpen.
The players inside included the film's co-star Gina Gershon; William Hurt; Glenn Close; Ralph Fiennes; Kari Matchett; Raoul Bhaneja; Jennifer Dale; our host Robert Lantos; Ben Mulroney; Molly Parker; Don McKellar; Arsinée Khanjian and Atom Egoyan; the film's director Bruce McDonald; Art Hindle; and Fiennes' trusty sidekick Fisher Stevens, doing his best squeegie kid imitation.
And what was up with that guy in a silver space suit?
After Rain, Fiennes and Gina Gershon retired to the Park Hyatt, where they canodoodled at the mezzanine bar.
En route to the ladies' room, or the VIPee area as we call it, Star Gazing encountered winsome Emily Hampshire and bumped into Ray Winstone (Last Orders) on the way back.
And we just missed Salma Hayek.
But where was Judd Nelson?
Gabriel Byrne was hanging out across the street at the Four Season's Avenue bar while Richard Harris held court at the Hyatt roof lounge.
FIENNES FREE ZONES: How is it that Fiennes missed Premiere mag's fest féte at Prego Sunday night? The guest list included Jennifer Love Hewitt (femme equivalent of Fiennes); Brad Rowe; Sissy Spacek; Marisa Tomei; Richard Harris; Wes Bentley; Tom Wilkinson; Nick Stahl; Jason Isaacs; directors Todd Field and David Lynch; Jennifer Quanz; Monica Bellucchi; Laura Elena Harring; and the casts of the films In The Bedroom and Carving Out Our Name.
There was also a House party at Pangaea, attended by Life Is A House stars Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Mary Steenburgen, Hayden Christensen and Jena Malone.
Focus stars Meat Loaf Aday, William H. Macy and David Paymer attended their film party at Amber.
DINNER AND A SHOW: Before the Rain party, Robert Lantos had dinner with Gina Gershon and Bruce McDonald at Rosewater Supper Club and Fisher Stevens dropped by Bistro 990.
Heather Graham dined at Sotto Sotto on Sunday. Ditto David Lynch and his Mulholland Drive star Laura Elena Harring.
Among the recent celeb clientele at Opus: Sissy Spacek, Micheline Marchildon from Inertia and Judd Nelson.
Salma Hayek showed up at Opus for lunch yesterday but Opus doesn't do lunch. Not even for her.
08/19/01 Ralph in O Magazine
There's a great quote about success and pic of Ralph in O magazine this month. The quote was from an interview a few years ago in Parade magazine. Also, the pic is a promo pic from Rich II, I think.
Here's a small version, click to see full size:
07/31/01 Pics from the Spider set in London
Found on the Empire web site:
Ralph Fiennes On Set
31/07/2001
The unusually temperate weather has hardly been conducive to filming a miserable,
wet London afternoon. But that hasn’t stopped director David Cronenberg
from trying. Braving the balmy sunshine, Cronenberg took to soaking Ralph
Fiennes with sprinklers while shooting scenes from his new thriller Spider.
On set with Lynn Redgrave, a bedraggled Fiennes hunched his shoulders against the ‘downpour’ and strolled slowly down a residential street, looking up at doorways while checking the house numbers against a soggy scrap of paper. Finally locating the right address he made a weary knock on the door before being invited in by a cautious Redgrave.
Cronenberg
repeatedly doused the street in water from a huge tanker and towering sprinklers
throughout the scene, rushing back behind the camera to shout “action!”
whenever the sun briefly disappeared behind a cloud.
Spider is a psychological thriller, which sees Fiennes trying to reassemble
the fragments of his after his premature release from a mental institute.
Fiennes struggles to discover the truth about his past and the death of his
mother (whose nickname for him was Spider) while keeping a slender grip on
his own sanity.
06-26-01
Ralph's Numerology Page updated
To see Ralph's personal year forecast, click
here.
05-25-01 Ralph to Join Upcoming RSC Performance
Here is an article about the RSC changing their operations, and Ralph
is mentioned in an upcoming Ibsen production:
RSC to Put Shakespeare at Heart of London West End
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Story Filed: Thursday, May 24, 2001 5:10 PM EST
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's world-renowned Royal Shakespeare Company
(RSC) on Thursday announced a major shake-up aimed at putting the
Bard at the heart of London's theaterland and luring back big stars
of the stage.
The RSC will spend less time at its home at the Barbican Center in
London's financial district and its spiritual home in Stratford-upon-
Avon, where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died 52 years
later.
``We want to put on Shakespeare right in the heart of the West End,''
said RSC Artistic Director Adrian Noble said in a statement.
``We want to produce great new plays not just in small studio spaces,
but in larger venues where more people can see them.''
The company will also break the grueling 18-month performance cycle
for actors that has put off many big theater stars who are unwilling
to commit for so long.
``The current RSC structure is a deterrent to many actors, largely
due to the length of contract, which can be as long as two years,''
said Kate Hunter, RSC spokeswoman.
Two big names backing the changes are Ralph Fiennes of Oscar-winning
``The English Patient'' fame and Kenneth Branagh, best known for his
Shakespeare roles on stage and screen.
Noble announced plans to stage Shakespeare's ``Pericles'' and Henrik
Ibsen's ``Brand,'' featuring Fiennes, in the West End.
The shift away from the Barbican and Stratford is expected to lead to
job losses at both centers.
``In addition to negotiations with the Barbican Centre on London
staff, job losses of between 50-60 are anticipated among the more
than 500-strong team in Stratford,'' the RSC said.
But Stratford will get an overhaul estimated to cost 100 million
pounds ($142 million) -- half of it state money.
Hunter said the biggest change in the company's illustrious 40-year
history did not signal a ``dumbing down'' in its productions.
``The RSC is still a subsidized company responsible for putting on
Shakespeare, including lesser known works, and for staging new
works,'' she told Reuters.
5/5/01 Ralph to Star in TWO Broadway Shows (hopefully)
Thanks to Micky on the forum for finding this news:
Daily Mail 05/05/01.
"Brits ready for Broadway"
Sir Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Fiennes are in the earliest stages of discussions
about appearing together in a British play on Broadway next spring. American
Mike Nichols would direct the two actors - providing they sort out scheduling
problems. They would play father and son in William Nicholson's play Retreat
from Moscow. The drama, a study of a married couple's break-up and their relationship
with their adult son, would open in New York next year. Both thespians have
read the play and are eager to work with each other. It would be ideal for
Fiennes because his partner, actress Francesca Annis may also got to New York
with the play Ghosts, which has been running successfully at the Comedy Theatre
with Anthony Andrews. In addition to wondering whether producer Bill Kenwright
will decide to transfer Ghosts across the Atlantic. Fiennes also has to negotiate
a proposed production of Private Lives. Hopkins - who has repeatedly said
he doesn't enjoy the theatre - became friends with Nicholson after appearing
in Shadowlands. The films was based on a play written by Nicholson. Retreat
to Moscow which Nicholson based on the break-up of his parents' marriage premiered
at Chichester in 1993. 'Its in a state of confusion, but if everyone can agree
on dates then it will happen,' a source close to one of the actors told me.
4/23/01 Ralph to possibly Star in Private Lives on Broadway
Thanks to Freya, who contributed this on the forum:
(21 April 2001) Telegraph
Ralph Fiennes, so long associated with the little Almeida Theatre,
will not be doing his next stage play there. Last week the actor shot
over to New York for a private reading of Private Lives with Natasha
Richardson.
Their chemistry was said to be "terrific" and the pair hope to
appear
in the Noel Coward classic on Broadway in the autumn. It should make
its way to London some time afterwards.
4/02/01 New Forum Address
I will be keeping this on top of the news for awhile until everybody gets
over to the new location:
http://www.fiennesforum.com/discus
4/02/01 New Ralph Browser Skins
Here's a link to get Ralph Fiennes browser skins. They are yummy. If you
don't know what a browser skin is, it's worth checking this new way to decorate
your screen.
http://www.patiolanterns.com/ralphskin.html
4/2/01
Francesca in Ghosts, Ralph in Red, and other news...
People News (great web site...http://www.peoplenews.com)
The Comedy Theatre Monday 2nd April
A casual Ralph Fiennes (in the pic he's dressed in his infamous red suit)
was first in line to congratulate a radiant Francesca Annis on her wonderful
performance in Ghosts, Ibsen's tale of supernatural retribution, which opened
at The Comedy Theatre last night. At the after-party at Le Meridien Piccadilly
Jenny Seagrove and Paula Wilcox plotted an updated version of The Odd Couple
and Anthony Andrews was congratulated by his whole family for his performance.
In fact, the champagne reception was quite a family affair, with actresses
Patricia Hodge and Hannah Gordon proudly showing off their sons.
Photographs
This is London
Francesca's family secrets
Ghosts
Dir: Robin Phillips.Francesca Annis
Rating: Where it's playing
by Robin Stringer, Arts Correspondent 
Back on the London stage for the first time in five years, Francesca Annis
opens at the Comedy Theatre on Monday in a play so controversial in its day
that it was banned.
The play is Ibsen's Ghosts, in which Annis plays a widow who is preparing
for the opening of an orphanage in memory of her husband, and whose son is
returning home for the celebrations.
But it was the family secrets that Ibsen exposed in this semi-autobiographical
piece - syphilis, incest, arson, blackmail and moral hypocrisy - that proved
too much for Victorian audiences.
"In this play the audience quickly sees the irony of the drama,"
Miss Annis says. "The actors can be sure that the effect of Ibsen's lines
is still relevant today."
Annis was last seen on stage at the Hackney Empire as Gertrude, mother to
Ralph Fiennes' Hamlet.
Ibsen still has shock value
Ghosts
Dir: Robin Phillips.Francesca Annis
Rating: Where it's playing
by Nicholas de Jongh
What a blast of horror Ibsen's stupendous drama of family-life haunted by
sex, lies and secrets, can still inflict upon hardened theatre-goers and innocent
newcomers alike.
There were some moments last night, when Robin Phillips's production, which
is far too cool and collected for its dramatic good or ours, did manage to
remind us that Ibsen's grim, 19th century tragedy, has a date-stamp for today.
Unfortunately Richard Harris, the popular comedy and thriller writer who's
responsible for this awkward adaptation of Ghosts, offers no fresh slant upon
Ibsen's guilt-laden family. As if embarrassed he subdues the play's high passions.
Surprisingly he mines no new vein of comedy from the spectacle of Anthony
Andrews's bizarrely aggressive, petulant Pastor Manders, the middle-aged cleric
in the vice-like grip of hypocrisy and to whom sexual repression comes naturally.
But Paul Farnsworth's stage design springs a surprise and casts just the right,
disturbing spell. For Farnsworth recognises that Ghosts, although realistically
set in the conservatory of Helena Alving's country house in southern Norway,
also lies on the verge of nightmare terrain and gradually drifts into it.
So the conservatory looks menacingly askew, its dark walls uneven and tilted
forward, with the odd cornice-piece absurdly placed. The high back windows,
which rear up from floor to rafters lean into the room and provide a mirror-like,
distorted reflection of its inhabitants. The garden view is of white clouds
of mist and trees that cast an eerie, silvery glow upon the bareish room with
its table and chairs.
At first Mrs Alving, to whom Francesca Annis in silver dress and plaited hair,
lends an air of understated sexiness and relentless calm, wears the trappings
of success. An orphanage in memory of her dead husband is about to be opened
on the estate.
Her 27-year-old artist-son has returned to live at home, after years abroad.
And Pastor Manders, her long-lost family, has arrived for the ceremony. Regina,
the young maid, whom Sarah Tansey invests with plenty of spirit, seems all
deference. But then truth, the skeleton that always lies in dangerous wait
within the typical Ibsen closet, edges its way into the light of day.
It ought be a subtle, awful process as Mrs Alving is goaded by Manders's smug
remonstrances into revealing her marriage as a loveless sham, her husband
as freelance fornicator whose liaisons have had more than consequences. Yet
an expressionless Andrews, sepulchral of voice, surrendering to petulance
and flourishes of melodrama, dehumanises Manders, making him an absurd caricature
of sexual repression and rigid conservatism. And his odd moments of erotic
contact with her, a touching of hands or clasping of waist, unconvincingly
belabours the notion that the couple have not lost their ancient, unexpressed
passion for each other.
Miss Annis remains beautifully unruffled and poised too long. She faces up
to Martin Hutson's Oswald, in his impressive outbursts of unease, temperament
and tears, with delicate regret. As the blows of fate hammer down upon her
and Helena discovers that Oswald, in the late throes of syphilis, would have
her be his executioner, Miss Annis registers pain but no rending anguish.
She's at her best in conveying Mrs Alving's regret she learned too late from
her liberal books that life is better lived by being true to yourself. There's
not enough to ensure this Ghosts becomes truly or deeply haunting.
3/19/01 Forum Outage Temporary (possibly permanent) Solution
Forum Members
The Internet Service Provider that has hosted the forum for the past
three years was bought out and I believe they are moving things
etc...and that should account for the outage of the forum this
weekend.
I'll be on the phone to them first thing this morning to find out
what's going on. However, this does bring up the opportunity to talk
about something I've wanted to address recently. My space on the
tidalwave servers is extremely limited (why we don't have
archives,etc). I'm trying to move the forum to a new location on
another "free" place, and am in the process of trying to get the
forum to work there. If I cannot get it to work on the new site we
may have to temporarily set up shop on Yahoo groups. I already have a
group established here, and can add the forum. That is a last resort,
but please be prepared just in case. My ISP has been very unreliable
recently, and I'm afraid this buy-out might lead to further problems.
The safest bet is to move the forum. Now, another problem I'm
encountering is that the free bulletin board program no longer exists
in the format we are using. The new free version is extremely limited
and only a trial version. If I cannot successfully move the older
version to the new server, I may have to try another program. I'm
looking into that further.
I'd like to have your opinions about Yahoo groups and if you'd be
interested in using that. It's free and we'd have archives. We would
give up control over some aspects..like...what if they decide to do
away with that part of their company..we're at their mercy..etc. On
the other hand Yahoo Groups (used to be Egroups) has a lot of cool
features, like a place to upload files, etc. So, think about it.
Everyone send me your opinions about this situation if you have one.
In the mean time I'll work to get the old forum up..and figure out
the future location. Please be patient.
Here is our Yahoo Groups Address:
3/9/01 Ralph Wins Shakespeare Award
