{"id":424,"date":"2023-06-29T04:00:20","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T04:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/?p=424"},"modified":"2023-06-29T04:00:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T04:00:20","slug":"comedy-is-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/29\/comedy-is-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedy Is Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sophocles\u2019 Women of Trachis: The Musical <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that gets tricky about canon in #Xena are the comedy episodes. They seem to challenge the idea that there\u2019s any consistency. Should we consider them part of #Xena\u2019s actual story? I\u2019ve heard some argue that anything that couldn\u2019t literally be\u00a0 in Gabrielle\u2019s scrolls shouldn\u2019t be canon. Sorry, Soul Possession! Then there\u2019s one of my favorite eps, You Are There, that couldn\u2019t possibly exist anywhere, seemingly. But I consider these all canon. There was a translation of Sophocles\u2019s only surviving comedy,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Trackers\u201d, a story about Apollo fighting with the satyrs over Hermes\u2019 new invention, the lyre. Since only half the play survived, Harrison filled in the rest about the team that discovers the fragment, & sets free the characters in the story. Chaos ensues!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a number of reasons why I believe this was a source for #Xena (Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire, etc.), but I\u2019m also interested in the \u201cuber\u201d quality of this translation. It shows how the past is present, & the classic themes are eternal. More to the point, it tells me that the show\u2019s canon isn\u2019t just about plot or character, but it\u2019s about how it\u2019s all presented: the aesthetic, or style, is as important as the story itself. It also tells me that we can\u2019t really understand the past without a good sense of humor to put it in perspective. It\u2019s good to have a healthy appreciation for the ridiculous (a life lesson that took me a while to learn).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, with that in mind, what about You Are There? Perhaps that was also a translation, using a fragment of Gabrielle\u2019s scroll, & the only way to knit those scenes together was comedically? Nothing really happens that isn\u2019t true to character, after all. Not even Eve\u2019s scenes, which I don\u2019t think would actually have played like that, but I can definitely picture her doing things like that: there was some real\u00a0 overturning-the-tables-in-the-temple energy there! The scene implying the Elijians are repressed sexually, indulging in disguised role-play, is something that may be embellished, based on perceptions about the cult, but I lay the groundwork for that in my story, with one particular sect that practices celibacy while waiting for Eli\u2019s return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of a musical ep finds fertile ground in the Greek plays, because they were the original musicals in Western theatre tradition. Opera was invented in the Renaissance as a way of recreating how they might have looked. It\u2019s fascinating that #Xena almost had a 3rd<\/sup> musical, featuring Sappho: that unproduced script also uses celibacy as a plot point. It went through many incarnations (at one point, spawning Lyre, Lyre), but never happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently that musical never left Rob Tapert\u2019s mind. In 2017, he produced Pleasuredome in New Zealand, starring Lucy, directed by Michael Hurst, which used that idea, set to 80s music this time (the original script used 70s disco, I believe).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just goes to show if you hang in there, things can eventually fall into place! I\u2019ll finish up my thoughts on canon tomorrow, then move on to at look at how I view Eve\u2019s character, possible origins & development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things that gets tricky about canon in #Xena are the comedy episodes. They seem to challenge the idea that there\u2019s any consistency. Should we consider them part of #Xena\u2019s actual story? I\u2019ve heard some argue that anything that couldn\u2019t literally be\u00a0 in Gabrielle\u2019s scrolls shouldn\u2019t be canon. Sorry, Soul Possession! Then there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-xena"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}