Saturday, February 17, 2007

coal tit, continental, Bald Primadonna

For some years I have heard but not identified a bird call while working in the vegetable garden. It is a repetative ringing, two-tone sound, crystal clear. This afternoon in the Grove, I hear it again high up in an oak tree. A tit of some sort, as I suspected. But which member of that vocal family? Now thanks to a CD and accompanying book which I was given for Christmas, I pin it down. It's a coal tit, Parus ater. I can still hear it, chiming, in my head.

In the Pantiles the Farmers Market is on and their are people, some of them in shirt sleeves, enjoying the sunshine. A man approaches some friends at a table. "All very continental!" he says.

In the paper today, I note that it is the sixtieth anniversary of the world's longest running play La Cantatrice Chauve, The Bald Primadonna, by Eugene Ionesco. It has been playing at the Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris since 1957. I enjoyed reading this surreal play a couple of years ago. For most of the action, the central characters - an English couple, who inhabit a suburban house - converse in the language of a phrase book, which is their basic means of communication. Hence the opening lines of the play, which I translate:
Madame Smith: Goodness, it is nine o'clock. We have eaten soup, fish, potatoes with bacon, English salad. The children have drunk English water. We have eaten well this evening. It is because we live in the suburbs of London and our name is Smith.

1 comment:

Lucas said...

I like this evocation of The Ionesco play. It reminds me of sequence in La Dolca Vita where smartly dressed people talk in advertising slogans. The recently televised film The Ladies' Room pays tribute to Fellini in a visually similar scene of its own. The director Gabriella Christiani has one of the characters mention "Fellini" as the scene closes