Fallen Angels

I went to see "Fallen Angels" this weekend at the Indiana Repertory Theatre (#95), and thoroughly enjoyed it!  It's a Noel Coward play, which was really what caught my eye, since I always enjoy his work.  I specifically remember seeing one of his plays the first time I went to New York, and we bought tickets at the Times Square Half-Price ticket booth.  It was absolutely the perfect first New York theatre moment, including a dog that absolutely stole the show!  But I digress.

Coward originally wrote "Fallen Angels" in the 1920's, but he updated it in the 50's, which I thought was interesting.  It was the 50's version that the IRT performed, as that was supposedly Coward's favorite version.  The acting was good, although maybe a little over the top at times.  I kept thinking that it was quite racy for the time, and I heard lots of other people making similar comments.  Once again, it just goes to show that "the good old days" were not all as rosy and innocent as people seem to believe.  The main plot point is that two married women whose husbands are out of town may end up having a meeting with a French man who they were both involved with (intimately) before they ever met their husbands.  It was funny seeing how they reacted to the possibility, and then how their husbands reacted when they found out what was going on.  The women ruled this show, and you just had to feel sorry for the husbands in their naivete.

All in all, an enjoyable performance.  And the little theatre at the IRT (not their main stage) was a great place to see a show... comfy seats and a theatre in the round-type experience.  Can't wait to go back!

Reading Lolita in Tehran

I have to say that if this book had not been one of my "required" books (#66), I don't think I ever would have finished it.  After forcing myself to get through the first hundred pages or so, it did pick up some.  The author focused much more on the books that the group was reading (Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Miller, Pride and Prejudice, and others) than I expected, and I think that was what made it so difficult to get through.  The majority of this book felt like a series of critical literary essays rather than any kind of story.  By the end I was able to look back and appreciate or see how she used the students' reactions to the books as a way of expressing how they felt about what was going on around them.  I admit to not knowing much about Iran's history, so I did resort to having to review some things on Wikipedia a few times (although I'm still a little fuzzy about a few things).  The timeline skipped around, which added to some of my confusion.  And I wonder if things would have made more sense if I were more familiar with some of the books she uses, because I generally did enjoy the sections better that involved books I had previously read.  Overall, I guess I'm just a little surprised at how popular this book was -- on the New York Times bestseller list for over one hundred weeks.  Don't know that I would recommend it.