The tidy up


The Edinburgh International Festival ends today.  As I write, the final event is resounding across the city: the fireworks concert from the castle accompanied by live music from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.  After the fun and mayhem, the city is in clean-up mode.  What goes up during a performance, in the form of the glittery 'rain' above, comes down and tends to lie around.

The once beautiful grass in the quad of the University of Edinburgh's Old College is emerging from under its stage of the past month.





The quad was the venue for several plays performed by the Polish theatre company KTO.  Below, a rehearsal of 'The Blind'.  I didn't go to see the play - the synopsis of  'the blind secluded in a hospital-like camp soon lose their civic structure and create their own world based on violence and animalistic instincts'  didn't attract me.




I was however fascinated by the moving hospital beds motif, given the National Health Service segment of the Olympics opening ceremony.

Comments

  1. I have to say that the play does sound interesting.

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  2. Linda,

    I don't blame you...I don't think that seeing the blind secluded in a hospital like camp would have appealed to me either. It looks strange to say the least. :)

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  3. As I wrote that it didn't attract me I did think 'hmmm, but these are very valid, universal themes'. I just didn't feel strong enough for it! I happened to hear some of the dress rehearsal and the music that accompanied it was disturbing to say the least.

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    1. It sounds a bit like "Blindness" by Jose Saramago, which is an absolutely brilliant book, but also quite difficult reading. I wonder if it was an influence?


      The Old College is such a great building!

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    2. You're right, Vince, this is the book on which the play was based.

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    3. Oh it is! Then it sounds like they chose to dramatise the most harrowing section. I'd recommend the book but not in times of frailty. Apart from the content, Saramago doesn't give his characters conventional names or use any full stops! It's pretty amazing. There was a film made too, but I never saw it.

      I hope I can some day get to the Edinburgh festival.

      That top picture is quite a capture by the way.

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  4. never been to the Edinburgh festival but certainly would love to do so once (soon)

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  5. I wish we could have a National Health Service!

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  6. Gosh,you never think about the aftermath when you go as a tourist to something like the Edinburgh Festival. Very interesting about the hospital beds. Was that just great minds thinking alike?

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