Adventures in Machiavelli

In addition to being a political philosopher of the first water, Niccolo Machiavelli also wrote operas. The University of Georgia has decided to perform one, "The Mandrake," originally an opera about the degree to which men will set aside their moral limits in order to pursue longed-for desires. This being 2016 in America, the opera will not be performed with the original music.
“We’ve made them rap songs with lots of stomps and percussion type beats,” Marotta said.
And this being 2016 on an American college campus, the opera will be cast in order to make a point about gender.
In order to change up the stereotypes and force the audience to ask deeper questions about power play and gender roles, all of the male roles will be played by women and all the women roles are to be played by puppets.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

......it would be better if all the female roles were played by men, and the male roles played by puppets..........

Anonymous said...

......and the original music score should be done by the Reverend Horton Heat......

Way better than crap music..... Imean rap music...

Grim said...

I don't know that the University of Georgia has the budget to hire the Reverend Horton Heat to write an opera. I'm sure that would be awesome, though. :)

E Hines said...

The metrosexual arias need to be sung by castrati.

Eric Hines

Cassandra said...

The whole thing looks spectacularly idiotic. But on a positive note, if the play is about men disregarding morality when they want something (and the men's parts are played by women) then isn't it now about *women* disregarding morality when they want something badly enough?

Silly me. We all know women would never do that. Because Patriarchy. And equality, which as we all know doesn't mean that men and women are equally likely to do wrong/bad things :p

Seems like they may have gotten a tad confusicated in their messaging.

Grim said...

I can't decide if it's idiotic or amazing. I may have to go and see it. At least they'll leave college having heard of Machiavelli.

David Foster said...

Since Machiavelli is not exactly well-known for his operas, it would have been nice if they'd played it straight before getting all experimental and transgressive...

Grim said...

Well, yes, I certainly agree.

Cass said...

...At least they'll leave college having heard of Machiavelli.

Yeah... wasn't he that trans dude who sexually identified as a female puppet?

/running away.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Yeah, I used to be in college theater in the 70's and even then, everyone wanted to talk about sex as much as possible and come up with ultra-hip twists to things that no one had ever thought of. Gender-bending was considered especially cool, by both the gays and the straights. Trans we didn't have, but I'm betting they would have fit by not fitting even then.

So I wouldn't worry about it too much. Some of the students and their audience will remain this determined to reconstruct reality in ways that are "interesting" that make you think, you ignorant Philistine, but don't require them to, because they have already thought, doncha know. Others will go on to have jobs, families, and children and remember it all as a fun and crazy time, untouched by the taught values. One of the most intense hippies of our department now has 8 children and a husband who is a district attorney who has a prison Bible study every Saturday.