On Relevance

Wow. Here's Lou Diamond Phillips on Camelot, now playing at the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC).

“People say King Arthur, how does that apply to anything that’s happening today?” said Phillips. “But we are on the verge of an election. We are going to pick a new leader. And Arthur created the Round Table to bring peace to the land and bring about a better society.

“There is so much in the play that speaks to that. Audiences have heard it and responded. We stop the show on occasion with applause based on some of the things Arthur has to say.”

Measuring relevance must be about the least interesting or useful way to consider a work of art--especially in terms as bizarre and incongruous as [Diamond] Phillips's, or as glabrous as the estimable Channing Gray's.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Trinity Consortium's Figaro on Thursday. I hope it's utterly irrelevant.