Hugh and Social Media

[jo]

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 12m

My first #flipagram !!! Better late than never. XMEN DOFP episode 1 A few highlights. #Happy #Logan…

http://instagram.com/p/qFNcuFChAD

Flipagrams?

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cheerfulinc.flipagram&hl=en

kay ‏@kaymac10 · 47m
Hugh Jackman is officially more hip than I am.

nicole ‏@karlurbn · 12m
hugh jackman using flipagram. Its The End Of The World As We Know it (x3)

[jo]

Hugh's got the right connections - he's back at Wimbledon for the men's singles championship

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 53m

Just took our seats @wimbledon. Amazing moment at the Men's Championship. Djokovic vs Federer

http://instagram.com/p/qHGjYMChMH

[jo]

He does cut a striking figure at Wimbledon, despite the Blackbeard look --










Compared to the other Hollywood celebs there ( Bradley Cooper, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel Jackson) and even fashion-conscious David Beckham, Hugh easily cuts the most dashing fashion icon among the men! When he is in a suit, it is usually so well-put together!


Jo

[jo]

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman One of the greatest matches of all time @wimbledon. Well done @rogerfederer . Superb win and huge congratulations @djokernole.

A cliff-hanging match, although towards the end it seemed the one who could stay on his feet longer would win it

Very emotional post-match moments for Djoker!


Jo

[jo]

Quite a few features about Hugh's radical new look. The Wimbledon championship must have drawn quite a lot of media coverage...and the film project PAN is getting reams of free publicity.

[jo]

Hugh is still tweeting about his excitement over the championship match --

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 22m

What a privilege to have been @wimbledon this year .... and to witness this incredible moment!!!…

http://instagram.com/p/qHoBeoChJO

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 24m

Epic moment for djokernole, Becker and their entire team. What a day @wimbledon. One I will never forget.

http://instagram.com/p/qHnaQUihID



Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 26m

Incredibly emotional! What a win djokernole!!!

http://instagram.com/p/qHnLXxChHd

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 27m

Match point djokernole!!!

http://instagram.com/p/qHnAa6ChHH



[jo]

It looks like Hugh is enjoying his downtime --

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 1h

What a day!!! Capped off by the awesomely, amazingly talented @brunomars. Incredible show.

http://instagram.com/p/qICwM6ihAv

Hugh Jackman ‏@realhughjackman · 23m
The amazingly talented @brunomars !!! Phenomenal show! pic.twitter.com/lyIQZgYJxo

[jo]

During a break in the match or a breakpoint in the game ( see Stefan Edberg likewise standing up)


And another one, showing his sun-protection gear ( aka a panama hat) --




Jo

[jo]

He must be reliving old Londontown memories -- at Portobello! I wonder if they picked up anything from one of the world's most famous antiques flea markets?

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 1h

Having a stroll on Portobello Road ... Londontown.

http://instagram.com/p/qJwXrOChHG

[mamaleh]

LOL, the only way I know of that street is because it's the name of a song in the Disney movie BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS.

He looks quite mysterious and dashing in that photo. I think I'm finally getting used to the look--although I won't be sad when he shaves and grows his hair back.

Ellen

[jo]

If you saw that romcom with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant called NOTTING HILL, much of that filming happened on Portobello Road --

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notting_Hill_(film)




Hugh must be enjoying the fact he is practically unrecognizable and can do the touristy things ...Although they did live in London when he was doing OKLAHOMA!

Jo

[jo]

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman Reminiscing about the other night in London. What an incredible talent @brunomars is. One of the best…

http://instagram.com/p/qQBuP7ChBA

[jo]

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman Reminiscing about the other night in London. What an incredible talent @brunomars is. One of the best…

http://instagram.com/p/qQBuP7ChBA

Bruno Mars's late mother came from the Philippines.


Jo

[alma]

Jul 7, 2014 10:30:38 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

LOL, the only way I know of that street is because it's the name of a song in the Disney movie BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS.

He looks quite mysterious and dashing in that photo. I think I'm finally getting used to the look--although I won't be sad when he shaves and grows his hair back.

Ellen

Oh, the memories that song brings! My children watched that movie till the tape wore out...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYBECKl0zFo

Alma

[mamaleh]

My kids loved it, too.

Ellen

[jo]

Joining Throwback Thursday is a recollection of that time in Les Miserables filming --

AlistairBrammer Fans
‏@brammer_Fans Today our #tbt is @alistairbrammer with @realhughjackman @killiandonnelly and @frafee on the set of the Les Mis film pic.twitter.com/I6EHYpYVR9

Alistair, second from left, who was one of the Barricade Boys (Prouvaire ) is currently starring as Chris in the London revival of MISS SAIGON.

[JH4HJ]

Have we seen this before?

University of Technology, Sydney communications degree graduate Hugh Jackman talks about his studying experiences.

[jo]

Thanks, Valerie.

I think I have read a transcript of it ( of most of the speech), but it is not the same as seeing Hugh talk extemporaneously!

*He is such a good speaker, apart from seeing that charm work itself to the audience.

*I guess the communications degree has helped him not just in public speaking but probably not as obviously as an eventual actor's training... or probably even given him the incredible ease with which he hosts a show or entertains a crowd.

*Will he come back to journalism at some point ( maybe write a script or a book or even host a serious radio/TV show on current events)?


Jo

[jo]

The Memorandum, the absurdist play which Hugh tackled in his acting class, was written by Vaclav Havel.

From Wikipedia --

Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, philosopher, dissident and statesman. He was the first democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic after the Czech-Slovak split.

I have never had a chance to read any of his plays but given his background, The Memorandum must have been a not-so-easy play to stage...and Hugh had to tackle that without any acting background!

I have read a book by Vaclav Havel but it is on political thought. Very thought-provoking and something I appreciated because, at that time, our country was in the midst of political upheavals!




EDIT: It must have indeed been a challenging play to put onstage --

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Memorandum

The Memorandum is a 1965 play by Václav Havel. In Paul Wilson's 2012 translation, it is titled The Memo. The play is a black comedy that parodies bureaucracy and conformity.

The Memorandum centers around the introduction of a new language, "Ptydepe", in an unnamed organization, that is meant to make work more efficient...




Plot[edit]

Josef Gross (Andrew Gross in the Wilson translation), a director of an unnamed organization, receives a memorandum written in Ptydepe, a constructed language, about an audit. He finds out that Ptydepe was created to get rid of similarities between words, such as fox and box, and emotional connections. He tries to get someone to translate the memorandum for him, and gradually becomes opposed to the use of Ptydepe. Gross finally finds a reluctant secretary named Maria (Alice in the Wilson translation) who explains that, while she can translate the memorandum, she does not yet have a permit to do so.

The next day, his deputy Jan Ballas (Max Balas in the Wilson translation) takes over Gross's job. Gross becomes a "staff watcher", someone who spies on the workers of the unnamed organization. Meanwhile, Maria gets fired for translating Gross's memorandum. The last few Ptydepe learners in the organization give up learning. After a while, Ballas gives his job back to Gross. Ptydepe is replaced with another language, Chorukor, one with very extreme similarities between words so as to make learning it easier, but finally it is decided to get back to the mother language. The play ends up with most of the characters going to lunch.

On absurdist plays --

Theatre of the Absurd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expressed the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.[1]

Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "Theatre of the Absurd." He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus".[2] The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".

Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal, Václav Havel and Edward Albee.

The River ( likened to the work of Pinter) must be an easy one, compared to this material



Jo

[suefb]

Oh, interesting. I read The Memorandum not long ago (inspired by Hugh's inspiration, I guess) and assumed he had played the role of Gross, who seems to me to be the lead character. But he appeared very first in the play. Ballas, another major character, also appears on the first page. I don't remember another lead character showing up later. Either Hugh was exercising his little hobby of embellishing stories or, I guess it is possible I read some different adaptation  of Havel's script than the version they put on (although my copy was an English translation from the early 80s).

[jo]

Since the speech was made at the U of Technology ( I think this was at the time that he was honored as its Outstanding Alumnus), he couldn't have been overstating the importance of the role that he was assigned, as that would have been embarrassing if some of his professors and fellow students were around

Also, this episode in his student life ( his being assigned the lead role in The Memorandum, when he only wanted to do backstage work) has been highlighted in many of his bio-data.

But thanks for sharing your thoughts - how did you find the play, Suefb?

Here's another interesting opinion piece on the play, especially its political aspects ( given Havel's background as a dissident).

www.theater61press.com/essays/memo-essay-havel.html

Introduction to The Memo

Bureaucracy is often a deliberate mask for the misuse of power. Although it is possible for bureaucracy to creep in through an accumulation of well-meaning rules, there is another more sinister sort of bureaucracy that can be used as a tool. Communist regimes frequently depended on that tool, though in time, they also became entangled by their own bureaucratic structures. It is no coincidence that one of Václav Havel’s main obsessions in his plays was the workings of bureaucracy.

I came to Havel through Ionesco. I grew up reading Ionesco’s work, and it was the similarities between the two writers that first appealed to me. And Untitled Theater Company #61’s Ionesco Festival in 2001 was the inspiration and precursor for our 2006 Havel Festival. It was also Havel’s own love of Ionesco, I believe, that gave him the confidence to allow us to present his complete works.

I mention the connection because Ionesco’s influence seems clear in this particular play. Ionesco wrote at one point that his plays were about the tragedy that communication between people was impossible. In The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, and many other works, language explodes into nonsense.

In The Memo, language implodes into nonsense. It is the office bureaucracy that provides the pressure for the implosion…and by implication, the calculated government bureaucracy that was the hallmark of Communism. Like in Orwell’s 1984, a new language is created whose purpose is pure manipulation. Unlike 1984, however, it is not a coolly powerful Big Brother that is organizing the implementation of the new language. The irony in this and many other Havel plays is that those in power are equally victims, equally caught in the machine they themselves created.

The Memo was written before Prague Spring, at a time when Communism was a bit more benign in Czechoslovakia than it would become soon after. There was a censorship board, but they were lax enough and unsophisticated enough that a play like The Memo could pass by unnoticed, or at least not completely understood. The Soviet crackdown had not yet taken place, and Havel’s writing was not yet banned. This was only his second play, though in some ways, this was the one that solidified his reputation, both as a writer and a dissident.

So many of the tropes that would become characteristic of Havel’s plays are evident in this early work: the shifting of power, the silent characters, the way that the hero’s moral compass slowly degrades through his own tragic flaws, the repetitions of phrases and of actions, the highly structured plot, the final monologue of capitulation, and of course the play with language.

When I directed the play during the Havel Festival, however, another of Ionesco’s phrases about his own work came to mind: tragic farce. With its constant and quick entrances and exits, The Memo works like a farce, and much of its humor comes when that rhythm is achieved. The absurd world that Ionesco was mirroring was that of France, soon after World War II. Havel’s absurd world mirrors 1960s Czechoslovakia. But the farcical world of The Memo is a world we’ve all experienced in some ways: one in which bureaucracy is deliberately employed as an excuse for otherwise unjustifiable behavior.

Edward Einhorn

[suefb]

No, no, no! I was NOT suggesting he was overstating his role, only (possibly) embellishing or enhancing the story about how the parts were assigned. Geez, honestly, I would not accuse Hugh of doing that. I have utter faith that he played a lead character in the play, and I happily imagined him, as Gross, reading a full paragraph of gibberish ("ptydepe") in a memorandum, which is how the play starts. As for the play itself, it tells a quite maddening and intense - but darkly humorous! the humor surprised me - tale of bureaucracy and suspicion, and it became even more meaningful after Havel's period of imprisonment. I enjoyed reading it and pondering its effect on Hugh (and us ).

[jo]

I see ...I have often heard about the way he got that role in numerous interviews ( the crossing of lines directly from "name" to "assigned role", because it was the most egalitarian way of doing it - LOL - even that sounds very "democratic") - the first one was I think in his first Actor's Studio interview with James Lipton.

But he does have a way of telling stories

We rarely get copies of plays like that in our bookstores ( so I can browse through it). I got the Havel collection of political essays only as an exception. I don't have it anymore because I gave it to someone who liked reading that kind of stuff ( one of our most famous dissidents, but now a reformed senator of the republic - shades of Vaclav Havel ).

Thanks again for giving us an insight on this famous introduction of Hugh Jackman to acting!


Jo

[suefb]

I found a fairly inexpensive used edition of The Memorandum on-line. It's a slim volume, and I read it through in one day, in a couple of sittings. Incidentally, the version I read was printed while Havel was still in prison.

Hugh has admitted to embellishing a story now and then. And those of us who pay close attention have certainly seen how some of them seem to change and get more elaborate over time! I don't doubt the "random" part of it, but the precise detail of the roles being assigned alphabetically by order of appearance, maybe, just maybe that's a small enhancement. Although I'm not even going to state that for certain because, as I said, there might have been some different adaptation or other of the play than the version I read.

[klenotka]

Too bad Hugh missed the opportunity to meet Václav Havel in person He would love it, I am sure. HAvel, with his first and then also a second wife, also had numerous charity activities. There are at least two big foundations carrying his name. I think they would agree on many things, not just the charity and literature.

He is still deeply missed