Check
out this lyric from a song called “Play for Today” by The Cure:
It’s
not a case of aiming to please
You know you’re always crying
It’s just your part
in the play for today
Not
bad… and actually, I love the song. Other lyrics from it (which
I won’t quote here), are fairly typical of Robert Smith... and
frankly, brilliant.
Now,
check out this
article from the BBC web site. Turns out there
are plans to revive a show I never knew existed. The show is called
Play for Today. And although the name is set to change,
the idea is basically the same… a quest for new talent.
Take
another look at the last two lines I used from the song…
It’s
just your part
in the play for today
I
would be willing to guarantee you that Smith is quite aware of
the existence of the original show (which ran twenty years before
wrapping up in 1984). I’m guessing that several people in England
have probably put the line and the show together… or that a connection
was made at the time of its release… but it isn’t something I
have been able to find on the internet. It was completely lost
on me over the years, and I never would have seen it if I hadn’t
stumbled across the article announcing the revamped show.
This
is something I wonder about all the time. Robin Williams voiced
the part of the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, and he inserted
line after line that went away from the actual script… doing plenty
of imitations and voices that were incorporated into the film.
For an audience in 1992… and even today… Williams is hysterical
and a direct hit. But what about fifty years from now? Will audiences
then recognize the characters? Will they get the jokes?
And
I use that as an explanation to move a step further... and ask
you to consider the absolute classic… Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs. It stands to reason that there is something in virtually
every frame of that movie that we, as an audience almost seventy
years removed from its debut, are missing. Perhaps caricatures
of certain people. The presence of certain types of furniture.
Maybe a rabbit or a bird or a deer happened to be the favorite
animal of the daughter of one of the animators drawing a scene
of Snow White out in the woods. Maybe that same little girl liked
to wear blue and red and yellow.
We
don’t know. At least, not that I can find in some specific place.
And
overall it doesn’t change the fact that the movie is outstanding
and unique and, for many people, one of the greatest films ever
made. A legendary, industry changing production.
As
time moves on, and productions get cuter and cuter, things like
specific words or items being inserted into songs, books and movies
will become easier and easier to overlook and forget. Heck, retail
outlets are advertising on the billboards in video games now.
But there is an art to some of it. When the staff at Pixar work
on the fine print of a newspaper, or the titles of compact discs,
or the pictures on a wall in one of their films… that’s art. That’s
hidden meaning.
And
although I can’t confirm it, I believe the same holds true for
the “play for today” line in Smith’s song and a connection with
the show. It’s there. It’s something that’s fully intended to
add depth to the meaning of the line.
The
simple question becomes... how often are we missing the true intent
when it should be right there in front of us?