Megan Stielstra's Blog

Christopher and I saw Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of Pericles at the Goodman last weekend and it was breathtaking. And a fucking blast, seriously, I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun with Shakespeare (After we got past the first ten minutes, during which I thought, ‘If I’m going to be watching a three-hour long play about incest I better start mentally preparing myself,’ but it wasn’t about incest AT ALL, that was just the catalyst for all the traveling and pirates and magicians and whorehouses and silver confetti and knights and Goddess Diana sailing in boats on blue silk, and it got me thinking about how you never know what’s going to happen when you walk out your front door! or who you might meet that could change your life! Like, in the case of Pericles, he’s all depressed and he travels to some random town—SPOILER ALERT—and meets his long-lost thought-to-be-dead daughter! And then, I read this New Year’s post from CrazyAuntPurl [I read her every day. She’s funny and honest and has very recently gone through a divorce, and while that’s not a trial/tribulation I’ve—knock on wood—ever faced—at least, not directly. Not as one of the two parties involved. I’ve only had third-party involvement—I read her because she’s strong. And she makes me feel stronger] about the same thing. How her ex-husband is right now such a huge presence in her life, but really, he was just some guy she met one day, and who knows what guy she’ll meet THIS day?) and yes, I know Pericles is one of his lesser-done plays—that some scholars say it isn’t written well and others say he didn’t even write the first half of it—and that makes this production even more spectacular. I don’t know much about playwriting, but I’m trying to learn (re: I’m writing one right now. Sort of) and the most interesting part is letting go of control. I mean, when I write fiction, it’s just me. I have to get everything all down on the page—the place and characters and what they look like and what they’re saying and how they say it, etc. etc.—and with a play, I have to remember that there’s a director and actors and production designer and all these wonderful artists bringing it to life WITH me. This production of Pericles really enforced that for me. I had to read the play in college and I remember writing a paper on how some scholars said it isn’t written well and others said he didn’t even write the first half of it. And now, looking back on that, I realize (as I do looking back on many papers that I wrote in college [at least until I started in the Fiction department at Columbia]) that I had no idea what I was talking about. And maybe in ten years I’ll read what I’ve written here and think the same thing. Which is sort of a relief. ‘Cause it shows I’m learning. Growing and whatnot.

And, seriously, if I were still thinking the same way as I was when I was twenty I’d have to slit my wrists. Which would be, like, so totally Shakespearean of me!