- Florence Foster Jenkins
I’m not going to blog a full review of Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins. I’ll save that for next week’s Memphis Flyer. I will say however, that I was haunted by the immortal words of the Scottish poet William McGonagall as I strolled through Theatre Memphis’ sculpture garden on the way to my car:
I will say without dismay
visit the theatre without delay
Because the theatre is a school of morality
And hasn’t the least tendency to lead to prodigality.
So true. But I digress…
McGonagall’s verse (as savvy readers may have already guessed) is renowned not for its brilliance but for its wretchedness. Yet, 180-years after his death, collections of the horrid master’s work remain in print and on a good night I can quote him nearly as well as I can recite Shakespeare. There is a place, you see, where awfulness and earnestness combine to create something truly special — something ridiculous yet as endearing and truthful as a child’s painting. And as comical as these abominations may be, they have the power of authenticity and are somehow more intrinsically human than any display of virtuosity can ever be. This thing of which I speak is a rare but real quality, found not only in the works of McGonagall but also in the cinema of Ed Wood, and in the recordings of Florence Foster Jenkins, a tone-deaf opera singer who, having no sense of rhythm or phrasing, presented herself as one of the greatest sopranos of the early 20th-Century.
