On Angela Kiss's 'How to be an Alien in England'

I picked up Kiss's book with some excitement: she is a contemporary female writer, working as an accountant, and a Hungarian, writing about her expat experiences in the UK. I put down the book with a bit annoyed. Altogether, I would give it 2 stars out o 5, if I would give stars. Here is why.

In her book Kiss is into what was a very popular genre from the Romantic age up to the late 1980's: giving a national characterology. She is trying to do it in a funny way, but the book does not give one enough info to discern what Kiss actually finds true and how much of her bafflement concerning British habits is genuine, and how much is adopted for comical effect. Some of the jokes are good, some of the stories are cute, but altogether the material is too thin. Where it isn't too thin it commits one of two other mistakes: 1) It relies too heavily on the same jokes, and 2) it doesn't recognize when being puzzled why another culture stops being funny. The first of these two issues becomes apparent after page 30 where she can only keep the narrative flowing by making more and more ridiculous overstatements, which, naturally, become less and less entertaining, and don't provide any actual insight either into her experiences in Britain as an East-European, nor into what the Brits are like in their daily interactions.
The second issue is very bothersome and irritating on many points of the book: Kiss seems simply to have assumed that her way of doing and understanding things is obviously correct, since it makes sense to her. That's fine so far, but then she assumes that different ways of doing things not only not make sense to her but they can't make sense at all. She doesn't even entertain the idea that there might be different ways of going about one's life and looking at things. Or at least she doesn't show any sign which would indicate that she understands this.

Reading the book reminded of an important difference between comedians. Some of them are really funny to listen to for a few minutes, and they can be downright brilliant in short sketches. Still, if one has to listen to them for more than 5 minutes it becomes apparent that what seemed to be depth or meaning is just obsession with some insignificant detail or a ridiculous overstatement and simplification. Then there are comedians who can do one and a half hour shows, connect a string of topics, comment on publicly debated issues - moral, political, etc. - and one is entertained all the while. Sadly Kiss's book reminded me much more of the first kind of comedian. There are some funny bits and pieces, but reading the book for more than 10 minutes makes its shallowness obvious, and highlights that its author has failed to grasp what being an alien in England is like, as well what Brits are like. These are of course both tall orders, in fact, in my opinion they are impossible, since there is no unified British character, nor is there a single immigrant experience. There are common threads but those would have to be teased out with much more care and sophistication. What's more annoying is that Kiss doesn't even seem to have tried sufficiently. I would only recommend this book to someone who has never been to the UK and never intends to come here, and is a big fan of often very insensitive and politically incorrect 1970's, 1980's humour.

Stoppard's Arcadia at Oxford Playhouse

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is twenty years old. It is still popular and often played. The piece is a well balanced mixture of comedy, romance, and a few intellectual topics. It comments on topics through the learning, development, and debates of the characters on determinism, on the development of physics and mathematics, on differences between rationalism and romanticism, as well as on some difficulties of research. During all this it still manages to be witty, in the good, Oscar Wilde-sense. (Note: in one of his other plays, Travesties, Stoppard uses parts of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest).

The play was now performed at the Oxford Playhouse to celebrate it's twentieth anniversary. It was produced by the Oxford Student Company: Milk and Two Sugars. (Cast here.) It's hard to evaluate it in detail: the play has lots and lots of complicated discussions, and a storyline with several interrelated twists. I won't go into the details here. You can read the whole piece, or go and see it if interested.

The richness of detail draws away part of one's attention from the performance of the actual play. As one has to keep in mind many things, track all the relations between the characters - their romances, flirts, and rivalries - there isn't much energy left. Of course that I had this feeling tells that the actors were doing well. They managed to convey the story in an entertaining and accessible way. Some of the actors did excellently: David Shield's Septimus Hodge was clever, quick and critical, but a warm hearted young man at the same time. Amelia Sparling's Thomasina was charming and bright, brimming with ideas and youthful excitement. And Carla Kingham's Hannah was just as careful and a bit awkward as the written text suggests. I found a bit of difficulty with taking Ed Barr-Sim serious in Bernard's role. But I understand that for a student company it is hard to find anyone suitable for the role of a mature, established and donnish academic. Nevertheless, his performance in the scenes when Bernard becomes angry was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of a quick and clever, but dominant man, he rather portrayed a hysterical and self-important fake.

My only complaint would be about the directors work. The performance placed a lot of emphasis on the comical elements, and the characters rarely adopted serious tones. This way much of the darker tones and darker humor became too light, and its significance got lost among the many clever and cheerful riposts. Also, the more complicated elements of the plot were sometimes rushed through - the characters were portrayed as becoming very excited and quickly pouring out their ideas. This might have been disturbing for audiences who haven't met the text earlier or saw the play for the first time. And if one misses any of the story elements, some of the great jokes and surprises might be later incomprehensible.

All in all, the performance was a good interpretation of the play, focusing mainly on the fun site of the comedy. I do not want to suggest that the serious issues were downplayed, but they could have given more weight. Still, it was an entertaining performance, very good entertainment for Saturday afternoon, and material for interesting discussions with one's company.