| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 12:25 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - AlanScott 11:54 am EST 11/24/14 |
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| I have never heard or read of Sondheim being publicly critical of any production of his work, and certainly not any current production. Also, I find it hard to believe that Streep would correct Sondheim's grammar (???) in a public forum. What's up with that? | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 01:12 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - Michael_Portantiere 12:25 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Well, if the film is a huge hit, perhaps Streep will star in a new film of Gypsy. (Which, of course, would kill Streisand.) I can see her going up to Sondheim and saying, "Shouldn't it be 'If Momma were married, Steve?" | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | MikeR 01:19 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - AlanScott 01:12 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Ha! I would hope his response would be "Of course it should, but do you really think June and Louise know that?" | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 01:36 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - MikeR 01:19 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Some years back, this was discussed here. I think I brought it up, and I said that perhaps Sondheim wrote it that way because, of course, the Louise and June weren't exactly well educated. And I think someone responded that he once asked Sondheim about it, or that he'd heard about someone asking Sondheim about it, and Sondheim said it was grammatically correct. I have run this around in my brain over the years, trying to figure out if using was instead of were is correct or at least can be justified. Which doesn't sound too healthy, does it? I mean, thinking about that doesn't sound too healthy. But I never claimed to be healthy. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 02:10 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - AlanScott 01:36 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| My understanding is that "if momma was married" would be correct as part of a thought in the past tense, for example, "if momma was married to that man at the time, we didn't know about it." Whereas "if momma were married" is the correct form for the conditional, which is how it's used in the song, to mean "if momma were married (today), we'd live in house as private as private can be...." I, too, always assumed that Sondheim used "was" instead of "were" because "if momma were married" because of the characters' young age and lack of education. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | chrismpls 04:04 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - Michael_Portantiere 02:10 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Agreed that it's right for the song but "if momma was married" is never correct. It's a contrary-to-fact statement, so it gets "were," not "was." | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | showtunetrivia 02:30 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - Michael_Portantiere 02:10 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| That's my take, too. It takes education and experience to master the subjunctive mood, and Rose's kids have neither. Tevye, on the other hand, has read enough to state his wish correctly: "If I were a rich man..." Except....he's supposed to be speaking Yiddish, which my husband tried teaching himself a few years ago. And Yiddish doesn't have a subjunctive mood. Laura, who still has bad memories of Latin and Greek subjunctive endings in grad school | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 02:51 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - showtunetrivia 02:30 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Just out of curiosity, why would you assume Tevye et al would be speaking Yiddish? I would assume they'd be speaking Russian or perhaps Ukranian, depending on where their village is supposed to be located. And I have no idea if either of those languages utilizes the subjunctive. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | showtunetrivia 03:35 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - JereNYC 02:51 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Actually, it's probably a push between Russian and Yiddish. By the end of the 19th century, Russian was supplanting Yiddish (the main language for Ashkenazi Jews in Europe since the middle ages) in many Jewish communities. But I've always had the feeling Anatevka was smaller and even more isolated than other shtetls. My husband's relatives were from that part of the world, got here when Tevye did, and they spoke Yiddish. Laura | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 11:53 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - showtunetrivia 03:35 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| My two Russian mavens have replied "Yiddish." Most likely a tradesman like Tevye, who had to deal with all sorts of people, would speak passable Russian and Ukranian as well, and perhaps some Polish. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 03:53 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - showtunetrivia 03:35 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| My father's mother also spoke Yiddish. Perhaps at one time she could speak Russian, but Yiddish was her primary language. She never learned more than a small amount of English. She died in 1973. I don't know exactly when she came here. My father was born in 1925. His older sister was probably born in 1922. They were both born here so it was before that. But I know very little about their history. And now no one is around to ask. I wonder what records might exist if I tried to find them. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | showtunetrivia 04:42 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - AlanScott 03:53 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Online genealogical searches are incredibly easy. The Mormons' FamilySearch.org is free, if somewhat clunky to use. Ancestry.com is the biggest; to get anything really interesting you have to join, but you can make family trees for free, and they have (or they used to have) a free trial. State resources are free, as are sone of the US censuses. Liberty-Elis Island Foundation has a free passenger search, too. By way of keeping this on topic, I wonder how much the ban on Yiddish theatre (enacted after the czar's assassination in 1883) contributed to the decline of the language at the end of the century. Laura | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 04:53 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - showtunetrivia 04:42 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Thanks so much. I must do that. | |
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| "Shtetl Days" | |
| Posted by: | showtunetrivia 08:32 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - AlanScott 04:53 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Apologies if this is off topic, but it does deal with the discussion of language in Imperial Russia and does involve actors, albeit fictional ones. Some Chatterati may know my husband, Harry Turtledove, writes science fiction, including a lot in the subgenre of alternate history. A few years ago, he wrote a short story set in a world where the Nazis won the war. Decades later, they're recreated a shtetl as a kind of "living museum," complete with performers playing the long-gone Jews, just like folks play Elizabethan Englishmen at Renaissance fairs today. But what happens when they start to get too deep in their roles? Laura | |
| Link | "Shtetl Days" at tor.com |
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| Correct link | |
| Posted by: | showtunetrivia 08:39 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | "Shtetl Days" - showtunetrivia 08:32 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Sorry! | |
| Link | "Shtetl Days" at tor.com |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 03:05 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - JereNYC 02:51 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| I would have tended to assume Yiddish for all the Jewish characters, except when they're talking to the Russian-speaking characters, because Sholom-Aleichem wrote in Yiddish. But now that you've brought it up, it's a good question. I don't know. | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | MikeR 03:02 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - JereNYC 02:51 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Not that it's really that important, but Russian verbs have indicative, subjunctive, and imperative moods (and there are six noun cases, just to keep things interesting). | |
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| re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 02:47 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - showtunetrivia 02:30 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| "And Yiddish doesn't have a subjunctive mood." Interesting. I didn't know that. Of course, that's translation for you. What'cha gonna do? A literal translation of Nina's most famous line in The Seagull would be "I gull." (One reason why it's been translated as "I'm a seagull," "I'm the seagull" and "I'm a gull." And maybe "I'm the gull," but I haven't come across that one.) A literal translation of the play's title would be Gull. The bird in the play isn't even a seagull. | |
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| Correcting his grammar was done very tongue-in -cheek | |
| Posted by: | Esther 01:02 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Deadline reviews Into the Woods film - Michael_Portantiere 12:25 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Playbill has a link to the Yahoo chat. I watched it last night. | |
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