In Plato's Phaedo, he recounts Socrates' beliefs on the Self and personal identity. It's the one I'm most interested in because a lot of it reflects in the way I create universes in my writing.
The theory stems from this idea that the self is more than a body and that one does not end when their physical form biologically dies, and that the self is more than a body.
Have you heard of the ship of Theseus? No, not the Theseus, Duke Of Athens, local arsehole of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In actuality, the Ship Of Theseus is the story of a ship, which started out as wholly made of wood. Over time, the wood needed to be replaced with metal parts. Eventually, the entire ship is replaced with metal pieces. Does this mean it is a different ship?
It really depends on who you talk to.
In my opinion, it is still the same ship. It's made up of the same structure, it has the same name, it's owned by the same person. The only thing that's different is the materials. It's like in humans, roughly every seven years, your cells are completely replaced. Mentally and emotionally, you change with everything that happens to you. But you are still you. To me, your identity is in your memory, and the things that you've done.
What do you think?
It's more likely than you'd think.
Because this year, I'm directing! Last year, we self-directed but that was a little different. And a part of directing is having a directors process. I will be blogging this process because level 2 ncea exists :)
The first part of putting on a play is getting a script. We will be putting on a play within a play or, more formally, Act 5 Scene 1 from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I got my script from MIT's Shakespeare website and basically just edited down the parts I didn't think were needed, just to make it that little bit more digestible, for both the audience and my actors.
Speaking of my actors, casting is perhaps the next important thing. All my friends are icons and were willing to put up with my horrendous bossiness for the next six weeks. I already had ideas for who I wanted where, which was perfect as all of them agreed with my choices.
The director in the piece presents the prologue, and as I still wanted to be apart of the piece myself, I thought it fitting that I would play the prologue myself. I also played the prologue when we did AMND in year 8, so I already had that little extra knowledge. For the actual characters, I cast Nadia as Pyramus. I originally wanted to put her in as Thisbe as we really need to start putting her in some more female roles but she was down for playing a guy again. As her scene partner, we have Jess as Thisbe. I just want to turn her into a drag queen. In all her short glory, I wanted Meagan as Wall. Purely for the short jokes and the 'hole in between the legs' jokes. In her Shakespearan debut as Lion is Kiera. I wanted someone sassy for this role and Kiera was totally up for it.
Last of all our acting actors, but certainly not least, all the way from Riccarton high school, is Neve as Moonshine! As if she didn't have enough going on at any point in time, she was keen on helping us in our performance. I think she could really get the depressing vibes of Moonshine down easily. Also dogs.
I will see you soon for a quick run of concepts!
(This is a left over post from 2020 L1Art)
