Stephen Poliakoff re-visited... 25 2 12

My wife and I watched his latest film to hit our screens 2 evenings ago with what I believe to be the first showing here of his production of "Capturing Mary" which apropos so many parallels to my own life I found myself googling this morning to learn it had first aired in the UK 12 November 2007.

And the parallels to my own life are to do with being one of the three senior males of the UK branch of our great clan.. descended or married into the branch founded by my parents all those years ago.. and of the way one can, whether one is conscious of doing so at the time or not, influence the younger generations in a profound way simply by airing one's views about this and that: sometimes in the most light-hearted of ways, and only because one is a person belonging to one of the older generations..? Though in the play the adversaries are of the same generation and as in many great plays represent extreme positions of that which is the main theme of the piece: how an evil man attempts to subjugate the will of a relatively innocent mind in the younger and less worldly lady of the piece in Mary..?

But in the process of reading the Wikipedia entry under the writer-director's name of being reminded of SP's considerable body of work, much of which has appeared on our TV screens in recent years, and so one's impressions of his latest piece being augmented by some of the others, all memorable, but to how wide a world-wide audience I cannot begin to wonder..? Titles like "The Tribe" 1998, "Gideon's Daughter" 2006, "Joe's Palace" also in November 2007 and based on the same house as "Capturing Mary" and then "Glorious 39" in 2009, the last named appearing here for a second showing only a few weeks ago and so belying the fact that we do not need to await the showing of all his work a full 6 years from its first appearing in UK.

So SP of so-called mixed Anglo-Jewish and Russian Jewish parents is spending the productive part of his life writing plays and stuff whilst I for example spent my life as a research and developer working in a number of different companies in a number of different countries sometimes inventing stuff and having it patented and then sometimes having to be present in this court in this country or that court in that country defending what it was we were getting up to..?

But now in the twilight years of one's life getting to dabble with a potentially much much bigger canvas for one's tales of this and that.. mainly streams of consciousness for you my almost unknown public..? Have a good day everyone this decidedly autumn day in our neck of the woods..?     
Pic 1) as the water temperature now drops to around 17 degrees swimming is still a pleasure even if the gathering winds begin to pile the water up into larger and larger waves..2) after exchanging notes with my friend M here he she get to brave the elements I just vacated..


A blog to salute the playwright Stephen Poliakoff 13 9 18 (44 hits)

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