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The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Readaloud. 1928 play about the newspaper business. Uses a bunch of slurs that have not aged well (though which characters do and don't use that sort of language in their dialogue serves the characterization), and, well, the reporteras are mostly kind of assholes, but apart from that it's an exciting ride! I was cast as the two most neurotic characters in the play, who get no sympathy from the play (Bensinger has a point about sanitation, and Mrs. Grant may be an embarrassing mother-in-law stereotype but deserves better than to be gaslit when she points out the truth).
Consuelo, by George Sand. This continues to be extremely entertaining -- as of last week I'd left off in the Gothic Castle in Bohemia, and the narrator had noted that if she were Ann Radcliffe there would be tons of secret passages and trap doors and all that, but she has to stick to verisimilitude. Not long after this we get a sequence where Consuelo has to venture through an underground aqueduct system to rescue Albert, the heir to the castle who has been missing for days. After which she succumbs to a fever, and Albert has to do some heroic doctoring under pressure to save her (which would be horrifying if we didn't know that Consuelo has Plot Armor).
After that we get what feels like an early version of the YA Love Triangle Trope (where does that trope originate from anyway?) where Consuelo tries to sort out her feelings for Albert (who as I've said is awesome, but also kind of terrifying) and for her ex-fiance Anzoleto (who is bad news for all sorts of reasons, but who she hasn't gotten over). This escalates when Anzoleto shows up claiming to be Consuelo's brother, and Consuelo, on the one hand not wanting Anzoleto to take advantage but on the other fearing that Albert will kill Anzoleto in a fit of jealousy, runs away in the middle of the night with the plan of walking to Vienna (where she was going to meet up with her mentor Porpora anyway).
On her first day on the road she encounters a teenaged Joseph Haydn -- if I had realized that Porpora was an Actual Historical Composer I might have seen this coming, but as it was I found it a hilarious suprise. They immediately become fast friends -- indeed, Haydn has a huge crush on Consuelo, who doesn't notice this as she sees Haydn as just a kid. (You might say "Mary Sue much"? but at this point Consuelo's Mary Sue credentials have been so solidly established I'd be surprised if Haydn didn't gave a crush on Consuelo.) And so they go off across Central Europe together, with Consuelo dressed as a boy in Haydn's spare change of clothes, singing and making music and having all sorts of adventures while trying not to be kidnapped for nefarious purposes or to let on that Consuelo is a girl.
This is all absolutely delightful, and I'll be sad to give it up when we finally make it to Vienna and the next stage of the story, but I also want to know what's happening next!
Consuelo, by George Sand. This continues to be extremely entertaining -- as of last week I'd left off in the Gothic Castle in Bohemia, and the narrator had noted that if she were Ann Radcliffe there would be tons of secret passages and trap doors and all that, but she has to stick to verisimilitude. Not long after this we get a sequence where Consuelo has to venture through an underground aqueduct system to rescue Albert, the heir to the castle who has been missing for days. After which she succumbs to a fever, and Albert has to do some heroic doctoring under pressure to save her (which would be horrifying if we didn't know that Consuelo has Plot Armor).
After that we get what feels like an early version of the YA Love Triangle Trope (where does that trope originate from anyway?) where Consuelo tries to sort out her feelings for Albert (who as I've said is awesome, but also kind of terrifying) and for her ex-fiance Anzoleto (who is bad news for all sorts of reasons, but who she hasn't gotten over). This escalates when Anzoleto shows up claiming to be Consuelo's brother, and Consuelo, on the one hand not wanting Anzoleto to take advantage but on the other fearing that Albert will kill Anzoleto in a fit of jealousy, runs away in the middle of the night with the plan of walking to Vienna (where she was going to meet up with her mentor Porpora anyway).
On her first day on the road she encounters a teenaged Joseph Haydn -- if I had realized that Porpora was an Actual Historical Composer I might have seen this coming, but as it was I found it a hilarious suprise. They immediately become fast friends -- indeed, Haydn has a huge crush on Consuelo, who doesn't notice this as she sees Haydn as just a kid. (You might say "Mary Sue much"? but at this point Consuelo's Mary Sue credentials have been so solidly established I'd be surprised if Haydn didn't gave a crush on Consuelo.) And so they go off across Central Europe together, with Consuelo dressed as a boy in Haydn's spare change of clothes, singing and making music and having all sorts of adventures while trying not to be kidnapped for nefarious purposes or to let on that Consuelo is a girl.
This is all absolutely delightful, and I'll be sad to give it up when we finally make it to Vienna and the next stage of the story, but I also want to know what's happening next!