Lively, lonely metropolis

[koganbot]

All right, Londoners, does this have anything to do with your actual experience?

London Drama That Inspires A National Dialogue

Instead it was the characters' angular, embattled postures, every one of which spoke of discomfort, frustration, guarded hope, and defensiveness, as these people tried (and usually failed) to talk to one another in any meaningful way. Theirs was a physical attitude I had been encountering since I arrived in London — on the streets, on the underground, in lobbies — without being aware of it. Suddenly, there on the stage was the crystallization of my daily experience in a lively, lonely metropolis.

(I knew a Ben Brantley back when I lived in Manhattan in the late '70s and early '80s - likable fellow - don't know if this is the same guy, but he might well be.)

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Small talk between strangers is rare - though hardly unknown - in London. It has been as long as I've known the place, and people have been pointing it out forever too. You can imagine, though, a bittersweet comic play about smokers getting to know one another outside a pub which would be low on this stuff.