The In-between 3/23
Or Permanent Sondheim, The Word Search, and some Non-Sondheim media
So, I have this Shakespeare tattoo. I used to have a really good line about it! I used to say that “I have the only tattoo I ever wanted.” It’s really nerdy and when I got it at Old Wharf Tattoo in college the person who did it said “really?” and “It’s just ten lines” and “I almost wish I didn’t have to charge you shop minimum for this.” It’s really simple and clean. I like it a lot!
It’s a perfect line of iambic pentameter, expressed through the sanction symbols I learned growing up. Dashes for the stressed symbols, and little “U”s for the unstressed ones. I got it on my left arm facing me, so that theoretically, I could hold a script in my right hand and reference particularly tricky poetry by tapping out the symbols on my arm.
I also loved so much of the work that it felt like referencing a specific play would be clique-ish. What I love, is the act of discovery within Shakespeare’s text. New rhymes, new takes, new interpretations, new scannings.
And my love of Sondheim is shared in that love. I think it’s the back of both of the beasts.
Before I wrote Sweeney Todd, I saw five versions of Sweeney Todd. That’s not even all of them out there! That’s not even all of them at the Library for the Performing Arts. But I watched five versions and it felt like that winter of my sophomore year of high school where my mom and I saw like five versions of As You Like It in the span of three months. My mom was only a Shakespeare fan in so far as I was a Shakespeare fan and this was an area where her love was uncomplicated. Everytime I listened harder for my favorite lyrics and lines, every production gave me a different view on characters, every costume dressed a character in a new identity. My mom came out of As You Like It asking me new questions, having different opinions, and commenting--eventually--on the nuances of the plot. I came out of Sweeney seeing him differently, seeing her differently, finding myself uncomfortably in Johanna, and wondering about how madness is portrayed on stage. Sondheim seems obsessed with the topic, and the rest of us have to interpret it with varying success.
So I’ve decided to get a second tattoo. I’ve been thinking about it for a few months. It’s really simple and clean, if not a little abstract. I’m too obsessed with all of the shows to get something from just one! Like choosing a favorite child! (I’m sorry I said that Anyone Can Whistle! Don’t be mad at me!) No, like my Shakespeare tattoo I realized it has to be universal. Has to be something about the man himself, while also maintaining my own personal style.
Aren’t you curious what it is?
I’m getting it the day the last Meandering goes live, so you have to wait until then.
Leaving you in anticipation,
Ava
