I Dream of Kimchee: The Good Old Days

In the good old days, Romans flocked to the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight wild animals and each other to the death. People attended crucifixions for entertainment. Granted there was nothing good on TV at the time. For along time the ultimate form of entertainment was gathering in the town square to watch a hanging. Fortunately, we live in a more enlightened time. Gathering publicly to rejoice in the death of a human being has become... passé. We have become civilized. In the Western world, we may practice capital punishment (not in Canada, we're much too civilized for that) but we minimize the humiliation, the pain, the discomfort. The needle is cleaned before its fluids kill the condemned.

Two years ago, I performed in Our Country's Good (by Timberlake Wertenbaker). The play was about the first penal colonies to Australia and the challenges that they encountered. As we spent a year rehearsing to present this play, we spent a good deal of time delving into the history of the period (1788). We studied the physical condition of these prisoners upon their arrival at Botony Bay. One of the primary questions that Arthur Phillip (Captain in charge of the new colony) dealt with was the question of capital punishment. So the issue of hanging was one that surfaces again and again in the play, and thus was a focus of our studies. The way the body reacts to a hanging is absolutely disgusting- and it blew my mind that anyone would choose to watch it. But again, there was nothing good on TV.

But in this day and age, I just can't get over it. First of all, try as I might to escape the image of a noose around the neck of Saddam Hussein, this has proven to be virtually impossible. You have to be ready to change the channel at every possible second. They keep trying to sneak it in. From what I've heard, I'm sure it's THE video on You Tube at the moment. I seem to be a part of a tiny minority that isn't excited (or at least curious) to witness the grainy video and the death of a dictator. Perhaps the images that formed in my mind as I read stories of failed hanging and all the like have turned me off.

My disgust aside, what really amazes me is how despite all our technology, innovation, social advancements and civility, we have really changed quite little since the time of the gladiators. People still gather together to watch a gruesome, violent death- only now people flock to their computers, a virtual village square. Death still peaks our curiosity because we still haven't solved that question. We are still intrigued by a violent death. As a side note, it's also interesting to note that our sense of humour has also changed very little in the past two thousand years. The Simpsons are characters rooted in Commedia dell'arte (Italy 1700s) and the Greeks laughed just as hard at a huge phallus on stage as we do today (believe it or not, this theory has been tested in at least two plays I've been in). It's nice to know that even though each day we move further and further into an age of computers and electronic toys, that we still hold some things in common with our ancestors.