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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 01:21 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Chazwaza 12:55 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| Yes, it belongs there, and it now becomes the capstone to the whole evening; we’ve seen all the ways that this life is killing these women (quite literally in Sonja’s case), and we also know that even if Sonja is too old for the oldest profession, she’s not got much life left to live (this version doesn’t tell us directly that she has AIDS, but it’s heavily signposted), and so it becomes the defining song of the night, in line with “Ladies Who Lunch” or “I’m Here”. It’s the highlight of the night. You might hate this, but Porter gives Ledisi the final, solo bow. |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 01:38 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 01:33 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Singapore/Fling 01:21 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| "Ladies Who Lunch" is different because Bobby, the main character who's story is the story we are tracking, gets "Being Alive". Queenie has no such number. "I'm Here" is an example I can't even count... my point was giving the 11 o'clock number to the person who isn't the lead. "Ladies Who Lunch" also isn't the emotional core or conclusion of the show, so in that sense it's also different... but "I'm Here" is both the emotional conclusion AND sung by the lead character. I'm very confident you know how different that is as an example for specifically what I was asking about. "I'm Here" isn't sung by Shug, and "Rose's Turn isn't sung by Herbie", etc My question was more rhetorical, I did come away from your post knowing how you felt about it. ;) Also, for the record, being too old for the life was both a joke (because she's 26, not 62) and a comment on how exhausting and draining and hard on your body and mind the life is. It's also a bit disingenuous to say that the life is literally killing Sonja because you see her deteriorating/dying of what is clearly AIDS. AIDS is a disease that is transmitted sexually, so sex workers are at high risk. Gay men dying of AIDS weren't being "killed by the life", like Sonja they were being killed by a deadly new virus that is transmitted largely through sex (and needles, but I don't recall this musical painting Sonja as a drug user -- though in reality, from what I've read and heard from actual sex workers, the truth is that the vast majority are using drugs of some kind, and I bet that's especially true in 1979 on the streets of New York, but also I'm sure there were prostitutes who didn't use or were clean, and maybe Sonja is conceived that way. If I recalll The Life painted the drug use as done by the male characters more, but I really don't remember well enough to say). |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 01:49 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Chazwaza 01:33 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| Queen is the central character in an ensemble show, and even in the original, she didn’t get a big solo number at the end - the show ended then (as it mostly does now) with the two friends singing a duet. Oldest Profession is the capstone because it captures the journey of all of these characters, and it works coming from Sonja. Also, what is disingenuous about Sonja being killed from a profession that gave her AIDS, and what does that have to do with gay men? A careless reader might get the impression that you think AIDS is the domain of gay men. |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 03:12 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Singapore/Fling 01:49 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| Okay, you've made a solid argument for it rather than just saying it works and is better. I think I could be down for it this way. And it's disingenuous to say that it is the life killing her. That specific thing wasn't killing all the girls working the streets with her, if they didn't get AIDS. And it was killing many people who weren't sex workers. It is specific to the life only because of the job is sex and so many people in the life end up using drugs via needles. It's not just "the life has worn her down to the point of deteriorating her into dying"... that is the virus. A careless reader would be reading carelessly and I care not for their assessment of what I said. I absolutely do not think AIDS is the domain of gay men nor did I say that. |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:15 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Chazwaza 03:12 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| I agree that specific thing wasn't killing all of the girls, but it was killing her, and she got it from being part of the life. I didn't mean to imply that her disease is meant to be true of all of the women, nor that the song is directly tying this disease into why she's getting too old for it... but it does add to our awareness of her shortened mortality due to her job. | |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 03:26 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 03:24 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Singapore/Fling 03:15 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| So then I think we can agree... the life wasn't killing Sonja, AIDS was. The life was wearing out, deteriorating and was very hard mentally and physically on presumably all who lived it. But if you catch a virus engaging in "the life" that can be caught by anyone living life, then it isn't the way you caught it that killed you it's the thing you caught. But this is truly a pointless argument now. Sonja the character has AIDS in The Life, and that's very real and very sad and complicated. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the original she does not have AIDS *in* the play we are seeing, rather we are told she is will eventually die of AIDS (when Jojo is telling us how each other dies), but her character wasn't written to be actively dying of AIDS, right? I'm not necessarily objecting to revising that, I'm just clarifying from the original's take. |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:39 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Chazwaza 03:24 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| I don't remember the original that well. This version also doesn't say she has AIDS, but it gives us *a lot* of context clues starting in the first act. I think I see how you're trying to lay out your logic, but it becomes a hypothetical: yes, she could have gotten AIDS in any number of ways, but the show implies that she did get it because she's a sex worker, so the disease is directly linked to her occupation. If someone injures themself at their job and files for compensation, does their employer say "well, you could have been injured in any number of ways, so it doesn't matter that it actually happened because we dropped a desk on you" (or however people get injured at office jobs)? |
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| re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 03:55 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: "The Oldest Profession" as an act 2 11 o'clock number... hmm - Singapore/Fling 03:39 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| But my point is that everything about living "the life" would wear out anyone doing it... in ways that a non street-sex-worker life would not. So if Paul, a gay man is dying of AIDS and Sonja a female sex worker is dying of AIDS, i don't think it makes sense to say that Sonja's job literally killed her. Unless you're also saying Paul being a non-celibate human literally killed him. No, in both cases a specific virus that had no cure or meds to suppress it killed Paul and Sonja. Again, it's a meaningly debate. |
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