Rachel Parsons writes about...

“Lighting the Candle”

In response to Challenge 284

The proper answer is “both at once.” “Lighting the Candle” has elements of tragedy — especially the Shakespearean or Greek tragedies, where the inevitable happens, but you scream “no!” (I always do at Zeferelli’s Romeo & Juliet, where the monk is hurrying to let Romeo know that Juliet won’t be really dead.) Not to mention that fatal flaws seem to flow like rain in the story.

Comedy, of course, in the humor (“Our children will be human” and the depiction of the blighted earth monsters roaming).

But I liked the irony the best. We all think the Kennedy assassination was a bad thing — but what if it was an event in this “the best of all possible worlds” (quoting Leibnitz). And the time troopers are working their hardest to bring about the situation that seems to be evolving in our world —implying that they may have finally succeeded.

Brief as they are, these are my thoughts to get the discussion going.

Rachel

Copyright © 2008 by Rachel Parsons

Thank you, Rachel, and I, too, hope that others will join the discussion. The Challenge question — whether “Lighting the Candle” was comedy, tragedy or both at once — is a sleeper: comedy and tragedy are two ends of the same spectrum, and the difference between them is a question of degree. Simple proof: in a vaudeville routine, slipping on a banana peel and falling is funny. Falling and breaking a bone is not funny.

I once saw the incomparable stage actor Hume Cronyn play Richard III for laughs. I imagined Shakespeare himself smiling on the performance and remarking, “Forsooth, thou canst do ’t.” And that gives you an idea how difficult it is...

Don