She doesn't live here. But she molts here.

just shows update for now.

Phedre

-Jean Racine, a tragic French dramatist, wrote Phedre as a traditional French tragedy in 1667, possessing of the favored form of writing, 6 foot rhyming couplets, which gave it sort of an artificial rhythm, and also making it extrememly difficult to translate. it doesn't really flow like iambic pentameter does for the voice, so they pretty much had to change a lot. 

-Phedre covers a whole lot of territory of all dimensions of human experience, theological (the idea of divine order/power, the gods have everything set up and you can't control anything), political (these are kings and queens we're dealing with, all of their actions have great affects, like splitting up nations and kingdoms, think about oedipus's plague, leontes's dividing of two nations, etc), Domestic (family horror;; Hamlet's uncle, Oedipus's mom, Phedre's step son), and Psychology (individuals' minds, ethos, etc)

-in 1667, you'd get an orchestra, act 1, a ballet, act 2, another ballet, act 3, a farce, act 4, something else, act 5, and then another farce or spectacle. it was a very social eventa nd people woudl wander in and out. theater as we know it today didnt really happen until electricity because there was no way to turn off the house lights

-they had really nice costumes. they generally were playing contemporary royalty roles. and the king and queen were probably sitting there watching, so you had to be dressed as glamorous as them. 

-french people didn't mind female actresses, unlike england

-soooo to understand the play, phedre, you sorta need to understand phedre's family. her father was king minos who receives this white bull he is supposed to sacrifice, but doesn't to keep it. SO poseidon (most people know him) put a curse on his why Pasiphae to make her fall in love with the white bull. she literally makes a cow cotstume thing and has sex with the white bull and has a son, a minotaur (face of bull, body of man), it was dangerous so they kept it in this maze. 

-soooo phedre, married to theseus, thinks she has inherited her family's curse because she (spoiler alert) is in love with her step-son, Hippolytus. 

-Arecia, who is the woman that Hippolytus is in love with, was made up by Racine, to give Hippolytus a reason to not love Phedre (like her being his step-mother wasn't enough racine....).

-this play...is one gigantic tirade. 

-So Phedre was done at the Lyttleton at the National. woo the national. Two hours. No interval. it's straight up tragedy the entire two hours. i sorta wanted to die. heh. 

-the set was amazing! it was like set in this rock, desert-y area, which we all decided worked really well, because it just show how desperate the situation was, how oppressed they were in thsi area, any color or happy pretty palace would have led you to beleive everything was fine and that they were happy. you did NOT get that impression, it had a ground and a ceiling made of "rock" and then sand all around the stage/platform, at one point the king through a sword in the sand and it went all the way down!! it was cool.

-acting was pretty good. Helen Mirren as Phedre was wonderful. I personally didn't care for teh king at all. I had trouble understanding him and i didn't feel like any of his actions were motivated, which of course bothers me. 

-there was tons of motifs of ocean, neptune, the sun, the idea of a monster (phedre), the beast that kills hippolytus is said to have the head of a bull (hint hint, minotaur reference, curse of phedre)

-interesting constuming: everyone was kinda in contemporary clothing except for phedre, who had this beautiful purple gown. she also had her own entranceway that no one else took. Really separated her fromt eh rest of the world into her own world of tragedy and curse. Hippolytus is of a foreign mother but seems to fit in this world much better than phedre does.

-my problems with it: everything is exposition! nothing happens on stage! bleh. I also didn't like the fake crying at the end. don't cry if you can't pull it off, you just sound silly. no interval in that is dumb, sunday matinee, man i was trying to not snooze. 

billy elliot

-SO. someone who use to be a professor at Duke who knew Clum used to be dating (i know, pretty removed) tis dude named Lee Hall. Lee Hall originally wrote Billy Elliot as a play, sorta an autobiography about his life. However, people were like, no dude this has got to be a movie so off it went to the movie many people have seen. Then Elton John wanted to write music for it to make it a musical and there ya go. 

-It takes place int eh North of England in a mining area. for while england ran primarily on coal so they were very important and had become nationalized

-the play takes place in 1981-82, during a minder strike because Margaret Thatcher had beat the Labour Party (who was getting funding from the unions) and thought the first thing to go should be the miners because they were the most powerful, which pretty much led to the destruction of the coal industry and caused great economic problems for everyone who relied on that industry, lots of people int he north.

-one change Lee hall made from the movie to the musical: he really emphasized the social problems of the miners in Billy's life. --- we all liked that.

-originally Billy Elliot was going to be about a boy who wants to become a writer, but that wasn't going to sell well, so they turned him into a ballet dancer, but many of the characteristics of his life are extrememly similar to that of Lee Hall (mom died at age 11, brother who's way older, etc). 

-Obviously, typical thoughts about him being a ballet dancer come out of that area

-first of all it was only something that higher class, posh people did and could afford.

-second, gender issue: girls do ballet not boys, ballet is "gay" so billy would be defining sexuality

-it was also a big deal for them to go to london because no one could afford it

-but he does hooray!

-the most important idea in it in my opinion: it's not just about Billy becoming a ballet dancer, it's about the fact that he's the luckiest kid alive because he's going to get out of this. the miners lose the strike and have to return to the mine, knowing they all will eventually lose their jobs as they are eliminated, billy will be completely out of it. and it's really exciting.

-i learned they have  Billy House. where once they do like a year's worth of auditioning for billys (aged 11-15 and no more), and get to about ten, they send them off the the Billy House for a year of training, and then generally each production has three rotating billies and an understudy/sick billy. child labor laws. ...

-Clum has seen Billy Elliot more than 7 times and thought the night we saw it was the sloppiest he had ever seen it! dang it.  He also thought they hammed up the laughs to much in this show, and it's really much more sentimental than it was. which makes me sad.

I thought it was good. my only issue was that i didn't like the dad or the brother at all, they would just start shouting at each other and keep it up the entire scene, it was bad. i also didn't like the ballet teacher at all. i didn't like her voice and i didn't like her dancing. issue. haha. but billy was good. i thought his voice was a little weak, sad, but he still did a good job considering he's like 12!!!! and they had this baby boy (like four years old) running around the stage sometimes and he was SO CUTE. i love babies. haha

 

Shall We Dance

I student rushed this today because Clum told me he thought I would like it because i liek dance! :) teehee. and it was at Sadler's Wells which is ten minutes behind Langton Close so that was nice. I got second row in the balcony for fifteen pounds which was great for two reasons: I had a fabulous view and no heads to worry about. and two because i was sitting next to six really old ladies who had all come together and were so cute and wanted to know all about what i was doing and everything I had seen and then after the show got up and started dancing. so cute.

the show: 

the show was pretty much another Adam Cooper love child (Adam cooper of matthew bourne's swan lake, Billy elliot when he grows up in teh movie, and tons more etc). he choreographed it and starred in it. which is interesting, but will come up in a second.

-the story was very simple: guy searching for true love travels around the world and runs into six different women from different places. dances with them, loves them, either leaves them, or someone else makes him leave. he finally finds the one in the end who turns out to be the girl who played the best friend of each of the other six girls at all the other places, ie "the right one was right in front of your face the whole time." beautiful dancing and beautiful costumes! man id give anything to do a show like that. it was beautiful and looked like so much fun. they did a 15 min tap sequence that was just great. so good. 

Adam Cooper's wife was actually one of the six women so that was pretty cool to find out. she was bigger than the rest, i thought that was interesting, but a great dancer.  

-the music was actually a dedication to Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein, aka hoof n horn's bff), so it had a whole bunch of songs form the king and i, carousel, ghost town, flower drum song, babes in arms, oklahoma, no strings, on your toes, do i hear a waltz, cinderella, and state fair. so that was cool to recognize some of the songs.

-again, gorgeous dancing, but i think i liked dorian gray better, just more interesting/quirky.

i came back to langton close and grabbed eugenie, taty, ted, and kyle and we picked up cameron on the way and were off to Soho to see an added performance (i told you on ichat, mom, that clum added a show wednesday night and that the schedule was different). We were looking around for teh theater and saw this restaurant called Las Iguanas and kyle and i had just been talking about how much we missed mexican food and there it was! hooray, so we went there and splurged a little bit (which made me happy, real food, real sit-down restaurant), and it was a lot of fun. I got, omg, a butternut squash, spinach, and chick peas enchilada with rice and beans that was heavenly. so good. so that was fun and then we had to run to the theater because we were gonna be late. 

we saw tonight, Dreams of Violence, which Clum didn't know anything about except that it got good reviews. it was in sort of another pub theater. maybe 200 seats at the most. 

-show was about a woman and her crazy family pretty much. kinda apologia, but a comedy. in a way. im not sure what questions or ideas or anything it raised or brought up, but it was still enjoyable. woman dedicated to protesting for lower class people, drunken mother who moves in with her, nympho exhusband she's trying to divorce, senile, crazy father in a retirement (cutest character), and son whose a drug addict. all of those things combined, don't sound like a pretty picture. but it was really funny and i enjoyed it. a little unclear abotu the ending, but hopefully we talk about it in class tomorrow and we get the whole thing cleared up.  

some quotes:

"she doesn't live here."

"but she molts here."

"there's so much i regret."

"join the club."

"divorce time."

"you think sex was the problem."

"no, i think you were the problem."

"you think you can stop me, but I can't even stop me."

"Joe, Joe Joe, am I ever gonna fall in love again?"

"I miss the certainty of belief."

"We were so hot, we didn't make it to the bedroom, but we're too old to get off the hallway floor."

"I hope you don't think I'm a stalker, but I've been following you" (haha)

"I slip."

"I catch you."

tomorrow is my second to last day here and im not happy about it. not to mention, i dont get to do anything "fun" because geoff and i had scene practice with matt ryan at three so we have to practice. BUT we're going back to teh Forge tomorrow night so that should be a blast. :) and then priscilla. oh boy, last show. :(

all for now.

much love,

becca

but there's no place like....

Take me to Heaven!! :D

So, I have a really bad headache tonight. so all you're getting is a rundown of the last three days. History, info, thoughts, ideas will come....later.  sorry!

most important thought right now: ugh i dont want this to be over.

Sunday august 2

Phedre and papers. Phedre was well acted, and had an awesome set. but boring. we all had to try to stay awake. no comedy at all. it was rough.

Monday, august 3

Hampton Court Palace. Main palace for William and Mary. Met Henry VIII

Nap. 

Science museum with Cameron. fun.

1 hr shopping at Oxford Circus! :)

Sister Act! - so good! amazing set! i mean AMAZING set! it was incredible. great show. so much fun.

talked to mom on ichat

tuesday, august 4

class, discussion about streetcar and black album and billy elliot

nutella and peanut butter sandwich

more shopping at oxford circus and the surrounding areas. pretty much a fail.

The Old Theatre Operating Room. Yeah, one of those theaters, where they'd have an operating table and seats all around that were stacked up. with a museum attached. creepy, but very cool. this one is the oldest surviving in england (or maybe london) dating back to 1822, and was only used for female patients....shiver.

Winston Churchill Britain at War Experience.  information about world war two and then a walk through of blitzkrieg ruins. except terrifying. they put you in this room with hardly any lighting and tons of bombing noises and fire and water pouring and junka nd a bunch of buildings in pieces and a whole bunch of dead bodies lying around (or just naked legs and arms and bodies of mannequins, still so gross and weird!), fun, but i dont think ill do it when i come back.

dinner at Cafe Rouge. yum. crab salad and bread.

Billy Elliot. Great! Good dancing! not one of my favorites. the dance teacher bothered me. billy was pretty good though, but didnt point his toes sometimes which bothered me. but i liked the curtain call dance a lot!

up ahead: tomorrow im seeing two shows! and working with Geoff on our scene. thursday we have to stay at langton close and practice all day and then friday is our performance. i dont wanna talk about it...

sorry so short, night!

much love

becca

It's only a paper moon, under a cardboard sky.

Thursday, july 30, 2009

A Streetcar Named Desire.

Tennessee Williams's Streetcar was really revolutionary in 1948 in two ways:

1) It showed how a play can really be influenced by film. Williams used a real setting, New Orleans, and described areas and routes you would actually take in New Orleans (Blanche's directions to her sister's house, and the real streetcar named Desire.), He also used a realistic set that called for a two room house with another house on top. and he also incorporated a lot of sounds that would be normal in everyday life. Like when we can hear Blanche in the bathtub singing, or the men playing poker in the kitchen while Blanche and Stella talk in the other room. These are realistic sounds you really would hear from the other room if you were actually in the specific room being used. so we have more incorporation of realism, along with some poetic realism because of how beautifully sad this story really is.

2) It definitely had an erotic force that had never been a part of theater before that point - "Desire." it's about sex as a really important motivation of human behavior, like the way Stella returns to Stanley, even though he had brutally hit her and broken the radio; it's what makes her keep coming back to him despite his aggressiveness and drunkenness....sex. At that time, the play was considered 'sexier' and 'dirtier'  that anything else. Then Hollywood bought them and made movies, but they were still considered sexy and dirty. But nevertheless, i really think there was an attraction to because of the idea within the play that williams had incorporated....that everyone is on a streetcar named desire. for something anyway. 

Not to mention, in 1948 (same year!), the Kinsey Report came out, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," which interviewed tons of guys of all ages about how often they had sex, when where, before marriage, etc, and the results were astonishing! And a couple years later, a sequel....female. So there was a lot of talk and thinking going on about sex.

 

And even all types of sex were represented in the play. At that time, i don't think anyone would have attempted to put gays on stage, but Williams got the idea out there with Blanche's dead husband (ugh, so sad). So all the ideas were there. Not to mention, Williams own sexuality...

Another common theme in the play, mortality. Blanche even sums it up saying "the opposite off death is desire." Which obviosuly is a huge issue for her...aging. heh, even the idea of sex leading to mortality is displayed in her, based on her previous actions in laurel. 

Nevertheless, she still finds herself trying desperately to live on, but in a more, settled down, home life kinda way. But we know right from the beginning, she'll never have that: She loses ("family debts") Belle Reve (their home), which means Beautiful Dream. her dream of old country home life is gone.

Some more attraction stuff:

-typically we think of the female as the object of male gaze. But in this, the male is the object of desire...Stanley. Though it may not be completely explicit, it's apparent how good looking he is supposed to be, that all women within the play know and feel that attraction when around him. It's there.

-There's also the idea that Blanche has pedophiliac tendencies..We know why she was fired from her teaching job back home. and then the scene with the newsboy pretty much just confirms it more, she repeatedly says "young young young young man" before she kisses this pretty much helpless kid. On the one hand, it can be seen as something disgusting and terrible, but I really read it a different way: I think Blanche still misses her ex-husband dearly. Stella mentions in the play that she literally worshipped him she loved him so much. And even despite what she finds out about him, which ultimately leads her to cause him to commit suicide, I think she is still caught up in trying to live that life she had as a sixteen year old. And is drawn to younger guys because she sees part of Allen in them. Not to mention, she wants to be young and dreams of having what has already gone. yeah. 

-There's a definite battle between Blanche and Stanley, not just in the way they both don't like each other. Theyre both objects of desire in different ways. Blanche is a southern Belle with a sexual beast underneath, while Stanley is an outright "gaudy seed-bearer" as he's described. but also, besides all that, there's a class war; the way Blanche continues to think she is above Stanley because she was raised above him, even though she has nothing now. She thinks she belongs to a class that doesn't exist anymore, but wants to hold onto some of those good values still. 

A few other quirky tid-bits

-Williams had a really big sense of humor. In fact, actors dreaded shows when Williams came to watch because he found his plays side-splitting funny. and he had this really distinctive laugh that would just would come out of the audience. He thought everthing that blanche said was hysterical, even though we find it so sad. Even the last thing she says "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" as the doctor offers his arm to her to take her to a mental hospital, Williams would laugh so hard because of her "activities" back at laurel with men. 

-In all of his plays, money is always some at stake or involved.

-another thing how in all his plays: a woman on the verge of insanity, or who cracks, or who is threatened with a lobotomy. Williams's sister, Rose, was mentally challenged. But even still he would always take her as his date to award ceremonies and whatnot, always made she she was in the best hospitals and had the best doctors, etc. He had a very close realitionship with ther and that really shows up in his plays. even the idea of "rose" comes up again and again. 

-Sad thing, he also kinda went crazy into old age trying not to go crazy because of her and actually died choking on a pill bottle after too many pills.

-Rose, his sister, claimed that their dad assaulted her and their mother had her lobotomized which was a traumatic experience for Williams. This shows up directly in the play: Blanche claims Stanley raped her the night Stella was in the hospital to have her baby. However, Stella has to beleive she's just crazy to get on in life. She has to raise this baby with Stanley, and decides to try to not think about it to get on. The way we know that it's the one thing that Blanche really isn't making up in her mind, because we know/see Stanley rape her, indicates to me that Williams believed his sister. ....Just a thought though.

-Tennessee Williams came to Duke about a decade ago to give a talk in Page auditorium. He brought onstage a GALLON jug of wine and drank the entire thing over the course of two hours talking to Duke. Clum went out to eat with him afterwards and said it was a horrifying experience. haha. 

-Eventualyl Williams moved away from realism into more poetical stuff and no one liked it, highly criticized him, yet he continued to crank out tons of plays every year til he died. 

-All of the great Blanches have been English. Vivian Lee, Rosemary Harris, etc. 

-it's an enormously popular play in gay culture. Some people have even interpreted Blanche has a gay man in a woman's body and she's become a fictional gay icon. I don't agree.

The show we saw was directed by an American, Rob Ashford, who typically does choreography (interesting) on Broadway (did thoroughly modern millie). At the Donmar last year he did Parade (show about race and ethnicity in the south, go Jason Robert Brown!), and they asked him if he'd like to do something there next year and he replied, Streetcar. Interestingly enough, Rachel Weisz (The Foutnain, the Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Enemy at the Gates, etc) also said she wanted to do Blanche....we're all set!

The Donmar Warehouse where we saw the play is a 240 seat theater, with a downstairs and a balcony, each with three rows of seats around three sides of the stage. It was literally like a big box. It's a magnet for some of the best directors and actors and shows, even though it's such a small theater, it's so prestigious. Every show is sold out way in advance and runs are always always always only six weeks long. They do good stuff.

and my, it was good stuff. As you can sorta tell if you read all that, I LOVE this play. I knew everyone else loved it too, but I had never read it in high school or anything though i thought about it a lot because I did a monologue a lot in high school that mentioned it. And I knew there was the famous line STELLLLAAAAAAA. but i guess i just never got around to it. anyway, i read it last week because I'm going to be playing Blanche in a scene next friday (more on that in a sec), and I was blown away by it. I youtubed some stuff on it and was so excited to see it on stage. It is heartbreaking. but beautiful at the same time. You don't hate Blanche at all despite her chronological lying and past life. You pity Stella who has to deal with EVERYONE all the time and does so well. 

It was great. so great. better tahn i could have pictured it to be. so good. i would go back and see it again if i had time it was that great. Rachel Weisz i thought did a wonderful job, Clum thought she was sick because her nose was running, but i didnt mind because she cried the whole show anyway. so sad.

cool stuff they did: The husband actually appeared onstage with Blanche a few times. When she was thinking about him, or hearing the Varsouviana in her head, he'd appear, in what he was wearing at the dance that night he killed himself (we assume). at one point, as she's breaking down, him and a whole lot of other people from the party that night come stage in formal attire and stand around her. it was intense. i liked it a lot. that wasnt scripted, but i think it worked well, because we could see in her mind. 

the set was really cool. they did the house sorta on a diagonal on the stage, and since the audience was all around the stage it was fine. 

I loved it!

Next week we have our last scene performances, and I'm really excited. Geoff and I gotta block this weekend but it'll be cool. I pu tthe youtube video up of what scene we're doing down below, but man it was so good in the play. I was sitting next to geoff so we were both like "here it comes!!" when we knew it was coming. literally blanche has been broken down by stanley, stanley has told stella everything he knows baout Blanche, bought her a one way ticket back to laurel, told mitch so mitch has stood her up, .....she's going crazy too. so I'm playing a crazy, drunk, falling apart, sad Blanche. Needless to say, i'm very excited. It'll be cool. Plus, I get to work with Matt again, who is the guy who worked with us on our musical theater pieces the other day, and i thought he was extremely helpful so im excited to see how that goes. 

--------------

Afterwards, we hung around because chelsea is obsessed with Rachel weisz and wanted to get her autograph, but she never came out so we all went and got cheap fish and chips for dinner (some kids hadnt had any yet!) and then a lot of kids went to see Blood Brothers and Cameron and and I went and saw The 39 Steps. 

Based on John Buchan's novel of the same title and adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into a movie, The 39 steps was first produced on stage in April 1996. It's been at the Criterion Theatre (where we saw it) since September 2006. That theater was so old looking! haha. it's first production was done in 1874, but those pink velvet seats looked like they were original haha. very cute though. 

The cast was four people: 2 men, a woman, and Richard Hannay (Stephen Critchlow, Stephen Ventura, Natalie Walter, and John Hopkins [ahahahahha] respectively.) The two men play over 10 roles in teh ply and Natalie plays three women. IT WAS HILARIOUS. definitely a lot of slapstick whatnot. Not really much to it, Richard hannay is being chased by policemen for murdering a woman (of which he's not guilty of), and he's being chased by spies who are trying to kill him because he's finding out about them (they murdered her). at the same time he's this hot thing that meets women everywhere he goes, particularly one Margaret that he gets caught up with. Anyway, tons of fun, we laughed like the whole time. Not really much to it. haha, you know your preferences in theater are changing when you have nothing to say about a completely comedic show. It was really good though! just not as mindblowing as something that has a lot of purpose. but im glad i went.

Clum came up to me at the theater last night and said i should go see Shall We Dance, another Adam Cooper that came out at Sadler's Wells that's got great reviews and he said he thinks i'd like it becuase of all the dancing, haha, so we'll see if i can fit that it.

Friday, July 31, 2009.

We had our musical mock auditions in front of everyone....that morning! bleh. I was like jumping aorund to try and wake myself up. hard to not let your eyes glaze over that early in the morning....not good when youre trying to perform. anyway, i went third to last. so it was taty, robert, cameron, tyler, me, kristina, and ted. We'd sing through it and then they'd give us criticisms or encouragement or something to change and then we'd perform like  a part of it again. Taty did a song from Aida "the past is another land" and it was intense! her anger was awesome and even better when Matt helped her with it. Robert did "Not while im around" from sweeney, which he played, so of course he did well with that. great voice. cameron did "love i hear" from forum, which is quirky and funny so good for him. tyler did "i've never been in love before" from guys and dolls, which is so cute and pretty and she is cute and has a really pretty voice. so that was cute. haha. Matt tried to get her to do her giggle in it. haha. then i went. then kristina did a very operatic version of "My white knight" from the music man which was cool. and Finally Ted ended with "Lonely house" from street scene which was crazy good. Matt didn't have any criticisms for him. and told him he was profoundly talented and should really try the business so that was exciting. I cant wait to see shows that have under the title "with Ted Caywood" haha. :)

Mine went well! :) I did Stars and the Moon, which Bob West said was a good song for me. and Matt was really glad that i had done everything he had encouraged me to do from rehearsal the other day, whcih made me glad. i was so worried he was going to be like "remember what we talked about doing the other day???" then he worked on some body stuff with me because i didn't move my feet at all, whcih i didnt notice, i never have really had an issue with sway stepping on stage (a big no-no), but he said it almost got unnatural that i didnt take a step or anyhting and he's right. so that was good. and some bending over at the waist a lot, which i have always done, i was criticized for that for my senior year competition monologues so i gotta work on too. anyway, everything was completely constructive so that was really good. he had good stuff to say. then he had been sing the last section of the song again and i think it went better than when i had originally done it so that was good. anyway, i'm really glad i did it. i still get so nervous about singing by myself, shoulda trained more i know, but i'm glad i force myself to do stuff like this because it ends up beinga lot of help. even though they did have anything to say about my singing, which may be good or bad depending on how you look at it, haha. anyway, it was fun. i was really happy after class. and ted said that was the best he's ever seen stars and the moon performed so that made me happy too. 

after that we got lunch and went back to langton close for thirty min and then we were off to Buckingham Palace. the staterooms are open for viewing only like 3 months out of the whole year and just started last week so i'm so glad the program landed on it. It was so beautiful!!! we got to see the grand netrance way, the grand stairs, a whole bunch of rooms where the queen receives guests (haha), and the ballroom. I liked the ballroom a lot. then we got to see a couple rooms with exhibits of gifts she'd gotten from other countries when she visited and a whole bunch of dresses/gowns she's worn over the years (some of them were SOOO pretty! i woulda worn a couple of them to proms in high school!) very pretty. we saw the dining room and whole bunch of other stuff. and then walked through some of the gardens in the back. lots of fun. we got the free audio guide tour (it was me, kyle, alex, ted, cameron, geoff, chelsea, and tyler) and we would all pusht he number and play at the same time to listen to the stuff at the same time and it was hilarious. because all nine of us would look up when the audio guide dude would say "look upwards to view the splendor of the gilded ceiling" so we would all start cracking up. it was a lot of fun.

then we split off and went different ways and I went with chelsea over to trafalgar square to do the National Portrait Gallery, which was on my list of things to do before i leave. it wsa really cool. i like portraits a lot. I kinda wish we still did portraits nowadays instead of photography. because a picture shows one moment of a person, how they were at that moment. but a portrait can show SO MUCH about a person, you can almost know what their entire life was like just based on a painting. There were tons! from Tudor/stuart portraits all the way to present, i really liked them all. 

And then off to the National to see .....the Black Album

Hanif Kureishi is one of the major english novelists, playwrights and filmmakers (some poetry too even) in the past 25 years. He writes primarily on one topic: 2nd generation asians (indians, pakastanis, etc), who were born in England. 

-in the 1950s and 60s Egnlish industries recovered from teh war and there was a huge, pretty much planned, migration from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Africa, and even the Caribbean to build up the labor force in England. 

-no duh, england had been predominantly white before that, so instantly there was a lot of racism and discrimination, particularly English vs Pakistani

-Kureishi's family had been relatively well off in Pakistan so they set up business in england and did fine. he dealt with racism but went to university nonetheless, and pretty much got into sex, drugs, and rock n roll, mega part of english society

-margaret thatcher came along in the 1980s and got rid of unions, denationalized railroads and mines, and pretty much created a socio-economic revolution. 

-The Black Album, is a book written in 1995 about 1989 England. The black album, is actually prince's album, who is an icon in teh book (and play). in 1988 the book The Satanic Verses had come out, whcih contained 70 pages spofing on Mohammed (making him out to be a clown and crook) and the founding of Islam. The writer, Salman Rushdie (an english citizen), pretty much had a death sentence on him because the Iranian leader was willing to pay anyone to kill him. then we have this intense revolution about hte freedom of expression etc etc.

-SO  the book was turned into a play by Kureishi. A middle class young man raised in Kent suburbs goes to University which puts him between western values and fundamental Islamic values. He's in a rooming house which a whole bunch of Islamic fundamental kids, but gets really close with a cultural studies professor who pretty much just teaches rock n roll culture. pretty much the kid, Shahid, has to pick which group he wants to be a part of of, and picks the rock n roll culture, and bluntly put, makes fundamentalism out to be crazy and stupid. 

*interesting fact: the five suicide bombers in london in July 2005 were English-born. didn't know that. it's a big issue here i guess. 

SOOOO...i didnt like the play at all for a lot of reasons. 

1) the acting. shiverrrr...

2) the script was too blocky. they'd be like the "protestors are coming" they'd come. they'd say some stuff. they'd leave two seconds later. and then the actors would discuss what just happened. it just wasn't realistic at all!. the shahid kid gets sick from drugs and alcohol and Riaz (a "crazy" religious fanatic) pretty much sits there and hugs him til he calms down and then Shahid's like "oh thank you so much Riaz. you saved my life." wait a second, you were dying two seconds ago and now you're completely fine????? i dunno, everything was just too abrupt and unrealistic.

3). finally Kureishi makes fun of ALL fundamental Islamic values in every single possible way he can, and i don't think that was an appropriate approach to take with this. Shahid went with the "normal, white english people" because the other guys were so crazy. but what bothered me was that it wasn't just that his friends were crazy, it was like ALL muslims are crazy. He jabbed at women's clothing, keeping their heads covered and trying to stay pure. he jabbed at having faith in anything and religion itself. he jabbed at everything. freedom of speech, i know. but i dont think ALL people are crazy for having faith and following faith and culture. Even one of the lines in teh play went something like"if you follow them, shahid, you'll stop thinking. do you want to think?" not all of them are crazy. i dunno. it really bothered me. he even had the kids think god was trying to tell them something through a cooked eggplant. i think everyone in my group was really angry at that point. yes, there are some that do crazy things, like blow themselves up and kill people, but not all the values are bad. if a woman wants to keep her head covered and not have sex before she's married because of her faith and culture, that if perfectly fine. great even. he made it out to be ridiculous. 

anyway, enough of that. it'll be a good play to talk about for my paper "role of drama in contemporary society" and then ill forget about it.

Today, i havent done that much yet. slept in, yessss. i think we're gonna go to camden market today to look around which should be fun. later i kinda wanted to see Coco before Chanel (movie with Audrey Tatou from Amelie that's not coming out in the US til september!) but i dunno if i'll be able to find anyone anyone to go with me.  anywho that's the plan.

Tomorrow we have a matinee, Phedre, and then the rest of the day will be spend on papers. today too. 

peace!

much love

becca

There's magic in thy majesty

I'm starting this pretty late because cameron and i sat talking in the kitchen for awhile tonight about shows, hoof n horns, freshman and sophomore year, etc. it was cool. 

"So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father brother; and then the prince my brother and the princess my sister called my father father; and so we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed." -hahahaha

The Old Vic Theater started in Lambeth - aka the worst London slum int eh 19th century (when london was all industrially polluted and whatnot). It was a music hall, pretty much a gigantic pub, alcohol and entertainment. Pretty much that until after WWI and then it was taken over and turned into a theater. Yes, mom, Kevin Spacey took it over five years ago and hasbeen running it since. 

The Bridge Project, is a collaboration directed by Sam Mendes (wife: Kate Winslet), who directed BOTH The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale. It is a cast of half British actors and half American actors. And for the most part it's done on the same set. They alternate which show they're doing every time they perform. Hence, we saw Cherry Orchard last night, and saw Winter's Tale tonight.  They spent half a year in NYC and are here in London for half a year and then they're going on tour with it. 

The Cherry Orchard

Time and the Conways which we saw forever ago, was actually influenced by Chekhov's Cherry Orchard --> a wealthy woman misuses money and destroys and entire family and loses their home.  A lower (mid class) guy becomes a rich guy. All characters regret their decisions but cant seem to do ANYTHING to change their ways and get out of their situation. 

So the beginning of cherry orchard starts in a nursery (winters tale too) - symbolic of how this people have never really actually grown up and characters wander in and out of the room with the action going on elsewhere in the house (also similar to time and the conways). for awhile, you cant even really tell who is the focus of the play, but you do know one thing: they are going to lose this house. So even though seemingly funny, happy, joyfl things are happening, we know something seriously ominous is approaching, ....so we get some poetic realism in a way. Checkhov really revolutionized that, the idea of making everything has realistic as possible through that 4th wall, so you feel like it's really happening, while having that poetic meaning behind it. realistic: people wander in and out of the rooms talking about different thigns so we dont know what's going on everywhere, no need for exposition really ("so tell me what happened in the last five years") and that seems more REAL.  poetic: sound imagery, beautiful alnguage, the meaning of the cherry orchard itself (loss of the old life, wealth, natural world), making the whole thing bittersweet, their world is coming to an end and no one is doing anything about it! partially do to their class, aristocratic limitation, they can't imagine anything else, or doing anything else. But chekhov still insists on slapstick comedy mixed in; just as Trofimov gets done yelling at Madam Ranevskaya, he falls down a flight of stairs. 

Chekhov actually trained as a doctor, but wasn't making enough money to support his family (yeah, different story today), so started writing plays, and also a lot of short stories, including lots of farces that were used as pre-shows for theater in the 19th century. in 1890 he took a year off and went to Siberia to see how tuberculosis was transmitted (eventually he got it, so probably not the best decision he could have made). and then came back to moscow and wrote some more full length plays.

The show itself....had its ups and downs. I think I liked it more than most of the kids here did, but that was just because I have a lot of respect for Chekhov, I mean, it's the Cherry Orchard. But we all agreed all the American actors were relatively weak in comparison to Sinead Cusack (Ranevskaya, awesome) and Simon Russell Beale (Lopakhin, the ultimate source that destroys the very world and family he worshipped and idealized when he was outside of it). Rebecca Hall [cough..] was good too (though I liked her much better...tongiht) 

One thing that frustrated everyone was that we couldn't really see a cohesiveness within the family. and truthfully, that could possibly be the most important thing that they could have. Though Time and the Conways had its faults too, those actors up there together seemed like they had spent their whole lives together. they were perfectly merged, and balanced each other, and together...made a family. these guys...sorta just seemed like they stepped into the spotlight when their line came up and otherwise had ntohing to do with what was going on. I also think either Ethan Hawke was super sick and completely hoarse, or his voice was just terrible. He go from talking to screaming between two words alone and it was miserable. Shoutouts, however, to Firs (Richard Easton) who was the completely hilarious manservant. every line he said was just spot on. :) and one cameo part done by Yepikhodov (Tobias Segal), he was trying to woo this girl and was trying to seductively sit down on some pillows and fell and ended up doing a backwards somersault until he was standing up again and tried to play it off like he had just walked two feet and not fallen over. it was funny. 

Other than that, definitely not one of my favorites, though kyle and i did agree it was still better than the observer. haha. 

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale was written pretty late in Shakespeare's career, which means the language is more complex and it's also called a "romance" - neither totally tragic or totally comic. 

-The king is jealous over his wife, leads to the death of his son (and he thinks wife and daughter). the resolution is different from a tragedy or a comedy, so hard to say where it fits in. 

but there is a commonality between all the romances:

-somewhere in it before or during the play, there is a dissolution of a family that is resolved in the end.

-somewhere in the play the focus goes onto the daughter and her future.

-often have supernatural effects: the gods intervene in one part of the play, tend to take place in a pagan world, too. 

-but there is always sort of a Christian idea of order, - a design to life, mercy, atonement, purpose, etc.

couple changes occurred within the time before and during the writing and production fo this play

-1608 the kings men bought an indoor theater in addition to the globe (I saw a really old drawing of what it really looked like yesterday!!!), so they could run year round. the theater was much smaller (held 800, as opposed to 2000), and were built like public halls, or galleries, seats all around and music on a gallery above. only aristocrats went, no groundlings (which is funny because Ethan Hawke as Autolycus the rogue says at one point to the audience something like, "aren't we glad we weren't born stupid like these men??" haha)

within winter's tale itself, we have 2 countries (excep ttheres no connection to them, politically or socially or anything, they both might as well be england, hahah), Sicilia and Bohemia. We move out into the countryside of Bohemia at one point and theyre having a sheep sheering festival (do what??? isnt that the English countryside?? haha). 

-we start at the Sicilian court, King (Simon Russell Beale) goes crazy jealous when he thinks his wife, the Queen Hermione (Rebecca Hall), is having an affair with Polixenes (Josh Hamilton) because he's been visitng for nine months and she's preggo. (Oh boy)she's innocent, but he throws her in jail, and goes crazy insane jealous even though everyone is trying to convince him it's not true. 

-Weird part? he becomes insanely jealous out of nowhere! literally, just at the beginning he does! so how do you make this believable to an audience who thinks people make rational decisions??? ----make the king short and fat (poor simon) and make the queen and Polixenes very attractive (check). haha. thus, king jealous, based in his own inadequacy (he thinks). , they also did this really cool motion thing during hte part where he gets jealous and we see the queen and polixenes thru his eyes, and they start cuddling and palying with each others' fingers with all this dark dream-like lighting and then it jumps right back into the scene and it's like they were never there at all! it was so cool!

-the oracle says she's innocent and bad things are gonna happen, but he says it lies. next thing he knows, his son is dead. wife has a baby daughter and king tells this guy to destroy it, but the guy cant so he sets it on top of a hill and then the guy gets eaten by a bear! it was CRAZY. A BEAR came onstage. okay it was a guy dressed up uber realistically. i screamed. i was so scared. it was soooo real and came up behind him! ahhhh it was awesome! then the king is told his wife and daughter are dead too and he's like "dang it...that was dumb" 

-but then we go with the daughter for awhile. and she actually gets picked up by a shepherd and his son and they raise her into this beautiful thingamajig and she falls in love (16years later) with teh Prince of Bohemia who chills with them but cant do anything because he's royalty so he decides to marry her without telling his father the king (polixenes). Theyre at this festival and they all do this really funny dance with balloons, i don't think i'll forget. ;)

turns out King Polixenes knows his son is there and gets all angry that he tries to marry a peasant. They run off to Sicily to try to fix things, the king has repented, and goes offstage with this girl....who looks like his wife... adn then shakespeare does something interesting. he has OTHER people come onstage and be like 'Omg the king and his daughter are reunited.' 'oh he cry and they are so happy.' but it doesnt happen onstage, we hear it like a newscast. why?? because the wife isn't actually dead! and shakespeare wanted the big climax moment to be when THEY are reunited!

King has pretty much been living like a monk to repent and Paulina says, we've had this statute made of your wife, come see. and they go look at her and she's beeeeauuuutiful. but sixteen years older and king's like why and paulina (sinead cusack) says "we wanted to show her as she would have lived now" and king gets so sad and wants to kiss her and paulina says okay, i can make this stone move and she does! hooray. lots of crying (i cried for heaven's sake!) they embrace it's intense. powerful. awesome.

BUT. complications:

-Hermione never speaks to her husband the rest of the paly. she embraces him but has no lines to him. A lot of people have said this indicates that she doesnt actually reconcile with her husbadn (AHA!), but CLum thinsk it's more that she's completely speechless with emotion. overwhelmed that finally she can be with her king again, not to meniton see her 16year old daughter she thinks is dead.

-Camillo and Paulina get married and there are no lines between them! and they don't really know each other. random.

-In this play, there's a lot of focus on that Order i mentioned earlier. and the idea that giving into your worst impulses can make you a slave to fortune, which will do bad things to you. and the only way to avoid that is to keep yoruslef in mind of that divine order. nothing is coincidence, but part of that larger order. 

-we can also see that in all the nature-y stuff in the show. hen Antigonus gets eaten by that BEAR. Son dies because a thundercloud (storm) came. nature isnt necessarily independent of our actions, but can really punish us. 

I also learned in class today that from 1660-18th shakespeare's plays were often performed in rewritten versions. King Lear didn't die, but got married in the end. The Nurse was taken out of Romeo and Juliet because R&J is a tragedy and the nurse was too comic, verse was regularized. winter's tale was hardly done at all!; in the late 18th and 19th century scenery got more popular and shakespeare plays like midsummer nights dream got super popular because they could have these gorgeous sets. 1864, they started doing shows at stratford-upon-avon; it was the 300th anniversary of shakespeare (dunno what...birth? haha). and then began producing a lot, but still Winter's Tale didnt get popular until a little over fifty years ago. today it's done a lot. and as of tonight, I can honestly say it's one of my new favorite shakespeares. I loved it. the plot was simple and beautiful. just the story of a break down of a family because of one man's BAD decision and how it is resolved. I loved it. 

Not to mention, the lighting was BeautifuL! tons of candles in the back! and I'd give anything to put on any of the ladies' dresses. SO PRETTY!!!!! all of them! i was so jealous. such pretty colors. 

i like when shakespeare is done with a twist. theyre supposed to be contemporary plays anyway. do them that way. tongiht was awesome. 

4:48 Psychosis.

just a couple more things on it from discussion

-the show was exactly 1 hour and 12 mins. it is literally the thoughts that ran through this woman's mind from the time she woke up every morning until the time she got up 4;48 am to 6 am. CRAZYYY. We decided a lot of her small movements (and also lack of movements) were due to her insomnia. There are actually at least five characters, her, her boyfriend (who leaves her), two doctors, and a woman who doesn't exist. This production had her do all the lines as if she is thinking about all them in her head, conversations, memories, or perhaps as they are occurring, hard to tell. the last time Clum saw it, there were three people in the play. I wander if it would have been more exciting to watch with three people....

Clum also said theres a lot more humor it in that they completely cut out of this production which kinda sucks. Apparently records of what Sarah Kane was like before she killed herself, though incredibly depressed, she really was quite funny (weird...) anyway, it definitely makes you think about who you are and where you are and it's still completely unsettling. but makes you think...isnt that what plays should do anyway? 

Streetcar Named Desire tomorrow. SO excited.

night

much love,

becca

p.s. random: found out that next year at the National, Paul Ready and Michelle Terry (my buddies from Time and the Conways and All's Well that Ends Well) are going to be doing the first play that was every done in a 3D box set (done in 1841). before that there was really only a backdrop adn a person and no spacial relation between people and the set. I also heard a random anecdote that the first time a door was opened on stage, the audience applauded, not because of the actor, but because of the door! teehee. :)

and this is the rhythm of madness.

Today was overall a good day.  in class today we discussed a couple upcoming shows this week as well as Jerusalem from the other day. That discussion actually helped me out a lot with Jerusalem and I now think I can write a little more understandably in my paper. ha. 

after class, i made a sandwich and then Taty and I returned our fans and I returned a couple packages of hangers I didn't end up using. Today was the 28th day we could return them and we did no problems so I was really glad about that. I also haven't been needing that fan because it's been in the 70s here, so that was good.

afterwards, I knew everyone was going to go do the tower of london today, which I have done plenty. So i decided to just do some stuff around Langton Close. 

So, first off, I went to the Charles Dickens Museum right around the corner whcih I've been meaning to go to for awhile. Dickens lived in this house starting in april 1837 with his wife Catherine and son Charles. He had two daughters while there, wrote Oliver Twist, as well as the publications of Nicholas Nickleby, the Pickwick Papers, and various other writings. 

It was a very quaint home which they've refurbished to look as much like it did then as possible. I was surprised to find out how tall it was: basement, ground floor, and then three upstairs floors. LOTS of stairs, though the five servants of the house really occupied the basement and the top floor. We got to see the rooms where he did his writing, where he entertained guests,  where he slept, where he ate, etc. while there. it was very cute, not as professional as it could have been, but I still liked it. 

Some quirky things on display in the house I liked:

-The Garret WIndow: thye had a window on display that was from the bedroom of ten ear old Dickens. the home was demolished in 1910, but this was preserved.

-They have another window on display that is apparently the one he is describing in Oliver Twist that Oliver is pushed through.

-Illustrations by John Leech: Most novels at that time came with illustrations. The ones on display were actually preliminary pencil sketches for illustrations in the first edition of A Christmas Carol. I thought they were so cool because it was Scrooge each with one of the ghosts, and i have definite found memories of scrooges. ohhh fifth grade.

-Dickens's Dreams: There was this painting originally called A Souvenir of DIckens by Robert W Buss. Howeve,r it is actually barely completely because Buss died and no oe finished it. all you can see are the sketches of it and one area (the area with Dickens is painted). I thought it was on purpose at first, but you can tell up close. It was really cool. It's just a picture of him in a chair daydreaming and coming up with his charactersbut it's a very cool image.

-Also noted no showers in the house. One bathroom. wash room (but only for food then), and a wine cellar (mmmm). 

Then I went back to Langton Close and got my sheet music copied for our mock audition musical practice on wednesday. Im not very excited right now because my throat has been hurting all day and that really makes me nervous, but I'm gonna try to take it easy, though I need to practice a lot tomorrow. 

Then I walked to the British Library. Apparently it's something you should see. That's what I thought - I'm going to see a library, I will look at the books and then I will head out. NO! turns out it's a HUGE library (only people who have been recommended by someone of high standing are even allowed to check books out of there), but there are tons of exhibits of cool books they have. I did two: Henry VIII: the man and monarch. and British Library Treasures. I spent more time in Henry VIII, no duh. It was cool, they just gave information about his life. but they did it through books and documents and parchments and whatnot they have gathered over time. SO it was sorta from a literary perspective. A cool thing I liked was this this church devotion/prayer book that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn used to pass back and forth to each other during church with little loves notes to each other. There was a message on one page from Henry like "oh forget me not, for i love thee truly, i am yours." yada yada. hehe. :) They also had some love letters to Anne saying he'd marry her. Stuff on all the wives. parchments fromhis childhood. books he'd read and studied while tryin to overthrow the pope. stuff about his empire. Things he'd written on. It was very cool! :)  

The British Library Treasures was just a collection of cool books and historical documents the library has gather over time, dating pretty far back and also a little more recent stuff like on the beatles and whatnot. too cool. 

Finally, on my way to the theater I stopped by the London Transport Museum, which is brand new and right next to Covent Garden. It was AWESOME! They had it all set up like you were going on a "Journey" or a trip and it started from1800 and when to present and just went through train history, underground history, bus history, and some water and taxi history. it was really neat. they had lots of train cars you could get in and check out the differences between them. i liked it a lot, especially the underground history. It's crazy how they used to have literal TRAINS underground, musta been so hard to build and operate. lots of models and stuff you could look at and very modernized. they had a future section though where they talked about all these crazy ideas for transport. should be interesting. anyone that has come to London and done all the major tourist-y places shouldn't definitely check this place out! very cool!

And of course, since I was at Covent Garden I had to get a snack from Ben's Cookies! Triple Chocolate Chunk cookie on vanilla ice cream for two pounds! HELLLOOOOO thank you very much! :D

------------

4:48 Psychosis.

oh boy.

this play was written by Sarah Kane, who only lived for 28 years and wrote about half a dozen plays. She died in 1998 pretty soon after she wrote this particular play -- she killed herself. At the time, people thought her plays were kinda crazy and too shockin gfor the stage, but today in England she has an important voice in contemporary theater and is highly regarded and appreciated. She utilizes lots of sex and violence, gaining influenced from playwrights from the Jacobean period (not really Shakespeare considering how tame he was in regards to violence and sex, overall anyway), and also Antonin Artaud who wrote "the Theater and its double" and who had a few ideas about theater:  1) the best way to move an audience through theater was to shock them, makes them really think - hence sexual violence, etc. and 2) Theater as sort of a religious place - sacramental. Finally she was influenced by Samuel Beckett in the way that as time moved on for Beckett many of his plays became more internal monologues, stream of consciousness, yadda yadda.

the 4:48 comes from the time that Kane tended to wake up every morning when she was depressed. The play is pretty much a troubled state of mind of one girl. and it's spoken in a stream of consciousness way; there's no names, many times in the script nothing is capitalized or has punctuation and there's also absolutely no information in the script about how to produce or direct it, do what you will with it. 

SO the show. was an hour and ten minutes. of Anamaria Marinca as the girl. talking. about how depressed she was. and how nothing mattered. "I'm fat. i'm lonely. i can't eat. i can't sleep." and lots of silence. lots adn lots of silence. you know, she didn't move the entire play. a whole hour, she just stood there and spoke, whenever she felt like it really. 

SO....not up my alley. BUT, I thought the girl did amazing. what an incredibly difficult role to play. Some of the guys were like "Well yeah, but she messed up on a couple lines." SHE SPOKE FOR AN HOUR AND TEN MINUTES. pretty much crying. i cant even imagine. the dedication. the emotional anxiety that takes to get there. it must me so hard. so i have a lot of respect for that.

some quotes: 

"what do you off your friends to make them so supportive."

"the truth no one utters."

"You've touched me so deep...and I can't be that for you because I can't find you."

"I miss a woman who was never born."

"It's not your fault...I know...but you allow it."

"the doctor told me I had 80 minutes to live. I had spent half an hour in a waiting room." 

"an this is the rhythm of madness."

"look away from me."

"it'll never pass."

"Beautiful pain that says I exist."

"You're my last hope...you don't need a friend, you need a doctor."

"I feel your pain but I cannot hold your life in my hands."

"You'll be fine. You're strong."

"I'm angry because I understand. Not because I don't."

"You'll always have a piece of me because you held my life in your hands."

"as still as my voice when you are gone."

"Swallowed. Slit. Hung. it is done."

"The capture. the rapture. the rupture of a soul."

"Watch me vanish."

but yeah, it's down there with been so long. 

The Cherry Orchard tomorrow! yay! :)

Night!

Much Love,

Becca

p.s. i took tons of pictures up today from all the museums, ill try and put some up in the next couple days.

Because luck comes from within.

Nothing has really been going on today. i worked on my song and lines for awhile and finished Q&A (the book that Slumdog Millinaire is based on). It was good! But very different from the movie. I still liked it though.

The gallon boys and I are going out to eat tonight (HOORAYYYYY fooood!) They've been wanting to go to this restaurant called Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which I know sounds just like a restaurant I'd like (heh), but I'm sure I'll find something, I'm just happy wer'e going out. We're not doing anything later on anyway, so it should be fun. The guys all slept in til 4 pm today! crazy. 

Anyway, I'm just gonna post a couple pictures, because I'm sure you padres want to see and I haven't in awhile.  

Us at Windsor Castle

Us at Roman Baths (yucky water!)

Us with a bunch of random rocks in the background....weird...   :D

Me in front of Westminster Abbey

Us at High Tea at Laduree (so yummy!): Neal, me, Chelsea, Taty, John, Eugenie, Tyler, Rachel, and Geoff

Us on the London Eye at night! :)

Us after the London Eye! :)

Me on the boat on the River Thames with St. Paul's Cathedral behind.

Us in front of the Natural History Museum

Our tour bus! :) so early!

Hopefully that's good for now!

Much love, 

Becca

You can like the life you're livin, you can live the life you like...

Again, I'm completely behind in my days here, and my days here are dwindling so quickly i can barely stay on top of them. The week neal was here was so busy (and wonderful!) and then jumping back into classes happened so fast and the workload this part is a little more substantial than the first half. we have longer scenes, with longer lines, songs to memorize, everything to block and organize and practice, and three more papers to write. I am upon my second to last weekend in this awesome city. It's terrible. 

But instead of thinking of that, for now, i'm going to try to write about five days. five days. we'll see how far i get. heh.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Today was the day of our tour. Neal and I decided that the best way to see interesting cool things outside of London, while still seeing ALL of the entire city, within a week, it'd probably be best to just do a tour with the three we wanted to see. We chose Windsor Castle, the Roman Baths, and Stonehenge. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but it was just an introduction for us anyway, and we wanted to see everything! We knew we'd get the feeling at each location that we wish we could stay for a few days (except stonehenge of course, heh), but that's...for trips back! :)

We got up WAY early, because we had to be outside this hotel, called the Royal National, at 8 am, to be picked up by the bus. We got there about 7;45 am and were kinda nervous because there wasn't any bus or info about the tour or anything really, but finally we found some people who were waiting for the same thing so we felt better. Then a lady came up and yelled Evans Evans Tours! and we were off! we got on this charter bus which ended up taking us to Victoria Station, because there were a whole lot of charter buses picking up from hotels for other tours and we had to redistribute. We ended up on the same bus with the same lady as the tour guide (heh), and were off by nine am to Windsor Castle.

First of all, Windsor Castle is huge! I thought it would just be like a castle, maybe about the same size as the Tower of London, but it went on forever. The village was really cute with lots of shops and restuarants. and on the land of Windsor Castle was a chapel and lots of other stuff. We got a complementary audio guide tour and decided we would tackel everything at the castle, and we did. We saw EVERY room, and the chapel, and the windsor castle changing of the guard, and queen mary's doll house (so pretty!), and found out that the Queen was actually in residence that weekend (a certain flag was flying). We were there when the Queen was! The castle itself was, of course, gorgeous, and everything ornately decorated (like Versailles, but only not so French). A lady got mad because neal looked at his phone for the time and phones were supposed to be off and she got even madder when we tried to explain to her that iphones don't turn off and that it was silent. then neal just said "it's off now" and she was like "good."  ....people can be really...dumb sometimes. We saw the wing of the castle that had actually burnt down in 1992 (right neal??), but it had all been redone and looked brand new. They even told us some secrets about how they kept certain things (The scorched wood flooring in one room was simply lifted up, flipped over and put back down again). 

Finally we had to run back to the bus and we really needed to get food, so we stopped by an Eat (yes that's a chain here, like Pret a manger), prepackaged sandwiches and stuff. I got some mexican chicken avocado wrap thing (typical), and neal got some chicken basil thing that was sorta like chicken salad (very yummy), and we ate in the bus and then i promptly fell back asleep on the way to Bath.

Got to Bath, only got 1.5 hours there because some lady was late coming back from Windsor Castle (we/they were angry at her). We also got a complementary audio guide tour of the Roman Baths, and I got to see the Baths like I never had before. The entire thing was an Ancient, social, spiritual, SPA! haha. I really liked how they had built the museum because it sorta travelled through and on top of the roman baths so you weren't actually walking on top of hte ruins but could see everything. There are tons of rooms there. And they knew all the purposes of them (or so they said), some had hot springs, some had cold springs, some were for old and sick, and others were for socializing, some were saunas to warm the body up and some were for getting massages! We could see the ruins, and you could still see how they ventilated the rooms to make them hot suanas, it was very interesting. Of course, we saw the famous nasty water pool, where everyone used to come hang out and cleanse themselves. Sounds like one big fiesta public pool to me! :)  then some guy in roman robes came out and starting chanting to the gods and i got scared and hid behind a column because I thought he might pull out a gun but Neal just laughed at me. 

After the Baths, we walked around for a bit and got Ben and Jerrys, despite the fact that it was the COLDEST day so far in England since I've been here (ben and jerrys is our thing!) and walked up and down the street to check out some of the stores and whatnot. For some reason, I really thought all the famous architecture of Bath was Grey, but it was definitely a yellowy stone; I'm still a little confused about that. The tour guide said that the stone can get dirty really easily and if they don't clean it the buildings turn black, but I dont think they had let the entire city of Bath get really dirty the last time I was there. I dunno. Neal got fudge (typical) and then we jumped back on the bus, and I promptly fell asleep on the way to stonehenge.

We only had stonehenge for 45 min. Truthfully, I don't think you could spend much more time there. They, looked like the picture. you can't walk through them or touch them anymore (conservation), so we could only walk around them. and it was freezing. and then don't know why theyre there, haha. All we really did find out is that theyre working on eliminating the road that runs right next to stonehenge and brings people there, and trying to get a road two miles away with "unprecedented visitor facilities and car park" and then youhave to walk a 2 mile spiritual journey to see stonehenge....So I dont think neal or I will be doing that when we come back.  but it was still cool! :)

Then we got back! what a day! 

Common motif: I slept every time we were on the bus that day. haha I think I was still getting over my sickness from the day before, and just tired, too. I don't generally sleep that much on buses though. I missed the entire tour guide's talk on teh way from Bath to Stonehenge. Neal saw pigs and prisons and all sorts of stuff!

When we got home we were pretty hungry, but wanted to be close tohome so we went to Brunswick square and went out to eat at Giraffe. i went there the first day i was here, but didnt eat anything (too exhausted), and I wanted to try the food. We just split, japanese fried prawns with a chili sauce and potato wedges covered in cheese, sour cream, and salsa. Both were very yummy.  That was it for that day!

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Tuesday was the day that went the least according to schedule, but also the day we did most stuff. Neal's last day. :( So it was a happy day, and also a sad day. But we still managed to have a good day. :)

We got up early (I think that's a recurring statement), and were at the British Museum when it opened. I really only wanted him to see the Rosetta stone and the stolen stuff from the Parthenon so once we did that we got out of there. 

Then we went over to Green Park and got tomato and mozzarella croissant and drinks from Starbucks to take over to Buckingham Palace for while we waited for the changing of the guard (SO YUMMY by the way, I think our overall favorite snack from the week, minus Bueno Bars and Macarroons and Milkshakes...haha). So we got over there half and hour early and it was already SO PACKED we couldn't find anywhere to stand and sorta just kept moving around. The guard came and we could hear them better than see them, but turns out my pictures captured more than I coudl see because I held the camera up real high. I've come to think, while being here for so long in London, that there are some things, of course, that you should do while you're in London, like Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, but what turns out to be the most memorable or fun things, are necessarily the most touristy things. I also realized during that time that I think i have an acute form of ochlophobia (I googled it, Neal!). I don't like to be enclosed with 8 million people all around me speaking different languages. yuck. Finally we found a black fence to sit on and watched the rest from there and then went and ate sandwiches from Pret in Green Park once we got sick of it. Learned that the park used to be a royal park and not has a princess Diana memorial walkway that is very pretty and lined with big trees and benches, nice walk. :)

Then, We went over to the area of Westminster and did Westminster Abbey. I LOVE Westminster Abbey, and remember it pretty well, considering it had been a year and half since I had last been there. We got the audio guide tour (we love those), and got the history of the abbey (SO OLD), and saw all teh famous dead kings and queens there, along with Poet's Corner (Notably buried: TS Eliot, Lord Byron, Chaucer, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy, Newton, Darwin, and some popular theater dudes, David Garrick and Lawrence Olivier). It was very cool! :) Then we went outside and saw where some monks live with their families...but they didn't have that name, do you remember neal? We also saw College Garden, which is only open three days a week, and I don't remember seeing it the last time we were there. Apparently, it is thought to be the oldest garden in London and still is gorwing stuff today, mostly flowers and some fruit, but back then it's where all the monks grew their food. i twas very pretty and very cool. 

After that we headed over to Parliament with the rain starting to come down only to find out that there was a 3 hour wait to get in. I was very sad, because I knew Neal really wanted to see it. But we decided to go the Imperial War Museum, because I had been wanting to do that, even though it was kinda far away. It turned out to be really cool! My one dislike was that there was this big gigantic room full of tanks, planes, guns and cannons, and boats, and trucks, and cars from different wars and different countries. That part was cool, what I didn't like was that they were all covered in paint so think they looked...fake. like toy, set up. But they were real, because when you looked at the descriptions, they had a description of what kind of vehicle it was, and then they had a description of what that specific vehicle did during which war. it was still cool. Then we did the World War I and II exhibits, which were gigantic wings on one floor. They were VERY cool. They had a uniform from every country involved, and lots of letters home to wives, and supplies, and guns, and maps, and codes, and trinkets, and messages, and pictures and all sorts of stuff. It was cool! And then for WWI they had a trench warfare simulator. You went into a room that was built like a trench and you walked around this winding path and saw a general in his office, some dudes fighitng form teh trench, a guy on the phone with a guy sleeping on teh cot, and then a doctor trying to operate on a soldier with hardly any lighting. it was dark and they had sound affects and whatnot. Kinda lame, but I think we both enjoyed it! :) and then fro WWII they had a blitzkrieg simulator. You sat on benches in this room and listened to a recording of a family of people talking and some are scared somethngs gonna happen, and then when the "lightning" struck, the benches shifted real fast. Then this really creepy guy working there took us through the "wreckage" which was kinda lame, but still terrifying, only cause the guy was really into his job and was really scary. we got out of there quick. Then we went upstairs to the Holocaust exhibit, which I'm sure you can imagine, was terribly depressing, and sorta what you'd expect. They had a lot of photographs though, that were awful. We did as much as we could take and then left. 

We headed back over to Parliament and turns out it was only a fifteen minute wait. The House of Lords ended up being done for the day but we got to see the House of Commons debating over whether to open up a new tax office, which one dude said would help them get out of the recession faster. But truthfully, I have a really hard time following them. A girl from France sitting next to me asked me to explain what they were saying and i was like "Im sorry...i have no idea" haha. They talk pretty fast and have strong accents, many are representing different regions of England and therefore have all the different dialects, and some are much easier than others (ie London over the countryside, heh). It was still fun and I think Neal enjoyed seeing it. Parliament is very old and covered in tradition. and Beautiful of course. 

After that we went and got presents for Reed and Dr. and Mrs Miller (yuuummmm). and took those back to Langton Close, because Neal really wanted to ride a Double Decker and the only route I know really well is from Langton Close to the National theatre, we took that one, haha. We went out to eat at a Slug and Lettuce (sounds gross, but is a chain over here!). I got a grilled chicken salad that was pretty good and Neal got Fish and Chips that were AWESOME because they were from a real restaurant. They were even better because they had actually taken the skin off the fish before they fried it. I don't like how most English people eat their fish with the skin still on it. It's gross. Anyway, dinner was yummy and fun, but kinda sad, too. last night.

Got back, went through all my stuff and gave it to Neal to take home and he finished packing and we just hung out and talked until we were exhausted (which ended up not being very long). Also, all the kids in my program were getting back that night from various parts of Europe (Barcelona, Paris, and Amsterdam). 

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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Neal got up at the crack of dawn and I got up not long after that to help him find a taxi. It ended up not being that bad. We just walked down Gray's Inn Road and found one and just like that, a great week was over. I walked back to Langton Close sleeping and sad and went back to bed until 11 am, because we didn't have class until 1 pm that day (to let the kids who went on trips get some rest). I think I needed it just as much, I don't think anyone, ever, will be able to do that much of London and England in a week as much as we did. I know I made you keep running all the time because we had lots of things to do, but thanks for tagging along. I know you wanted to see everything (so did I!) and ....we did!  it was an awesome break!

Class. I sorta talked about it a few days ago, we got our new scene assignments. I'll be playing Blanche from Streetcar with Geoff (again!) playing Mitch. If anyone wants to check it out we're doing the first 4 and a half minutes of this video from the show for our assignment:

Lots of lines to memorize!

We also worked out our musical mock auditions with famous people for this wednesday and friday (oh boy). I'll be doing Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World which Clum actually recommended, which works out well because I know it the best. So I'll be working on that for the next few days.

Then we talked about La Cage Aux Folles. Ohhhh La Cage. Starting as a French film in the mid1970s, it was a great foreign farce for the time, staring two overweigh french comic actors. There were 2 sequels of the movie, and in 1983 it was made into the Broadway musical we know today, which included a team of really strong people: Arthur Lawrence (director of gypsy, west side story and more), Harvey Fierstein, who funny story started his career as a drag performer in NY, with a voice like he had smoked 1 million packs of cigarettes and actaully wrote another play about a drag queen that adopts a kid (that kid was apparently Matthew Broderick's debut...), so obviously he was a good guy to incorporate. And Jerry Herman who composed ehhh, a couple small musicals in the 60s like Hello Dolly and Mame, which are kinda centered on larger than life women (it has even been considered putting a man in for teh role of Dolly. (Note: the Bird Cage with robin williams is just an americanized adaptation. A few kids didnt really realize this....) 

Anyway, La Cage actually didn't do so well in England at first, which is a little surprising, because apparently they're more accepting than we are (okay.), but did great in amateur theaters (kinda like in the US, it's done everywhere).  La Cage was in reality the first attempt of making homosexuality the text, rather than the underlying subtext in the play, and came out in 1983 (midst of AIDS epidemic), with some rock songs that stick with you (I am what i am, etc). 

The show itself, was in a way, great. It was funny and the,....guys were amazing dancers, they worked their butts off. The story is a little lame, and i really had a hard time liking the two supporting roles, the son and his fiancee anne. Once I found out the son was actually the understudy, I felt a little better, but i still didnt like them. But it was colorful and fun and enjoyable, nevertheless. We had good seats, too. Still, not one of my favorites, but it's okay. 

I think it's interesting how every play seems to have some underlying subtext about homosexuality. Or maybe I'm just noticing it because there was in the past like 6 shows we've seen (hmm, or maybe that was a chosen patterned schedule..) 

-Troilus and Cressida: Ulysses and Patroclus (which was apparently for the time wellknown in greek socities, and an unspoken part of Elizabethan court, even King James I was said to have male "favorites"

-Dorian Gray - Well...Dorian. Oscar Wilde made hints in 1890 about what was going on sexually, but couldn't really be as direct about it as Matthew Bourne could today in his dance drama

-Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme  - the main relationship in that entire show is that of Piper and Craig, The playwright Frank McGuinness was even gay. 

-Apologia: this is a little subtler, but Kristen (the lead's)'s best friend is Hugh, a gay guy who seems to understand her better than her own two sons. In that way, Alexi Caye Campbell sort of represents how there is a this common understanding that straight women can get along with gay men pretty well. 

Finally, we discussed how there are two kinds of musical numbers in musicals (generally speaking)

1 - Book number: these numbers help tell the story; maybe not directly, but perhaps the state of mind of a character, or an idea, etc; aka I want, I love, I am songs; all of which fit into the story.

2 - Diegetic - the character is a character who is performing - like the first number in La Cage, They're performing in a nightclub, another example: many in Cabaret.

*Clum also stressed how important it is that the stakes have to be high enough for people to move from talking to singing, otherwise it doesn't fit within the show. they have to be seamless. the audience wants the characters to be talking sometimes, and if you just launch them into songs into inappropriate times, it could be extremely detrimental. 

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thursday was a pretty good day, and also my and neal's 11 monthaversary :) What an awesome way to celebrate, london for a week, haha. :) Thursday we actually had a divided class, since half the class is doing scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire and the other half is doing When the Rain Stops Falling. We (Streetcar kids) had the early shift), and all we did was read our scenes, sorta discuss each other, figure out their objectives in each scene, and emotional wellbeing and whatnot. It'll be interesting because I sort of have the climax of Blanche. Everyone else sorta has the normal her, the her on top of everything. I have the crazy, old, I hear music in my head, I'm an alcoholic and Mitch has found me out, Blanche. Should be challenging. :)

AFter that I waited for an hour to let the other group finish and then Cameron, Kyle, Ted and I went out to lunch with Clum! We got pizza from our favorite place (starts with an M). It's really cool because every day they have different kinds of pizza, my first time i had potato and artichoke, which sounds weird but was SO good!! Anyway, they make whatever they want every day and it's very italian. I got the only vegetarian one, i dont really know what it was. I think eggplant, parmesan and mozzarella, but it was very good, and italian soda, dont know what that was either because the bottle was in italian, haha. We took our lunches to Gray's Inn Garden and sat next to a tree on the grass and discussed Hoof n Horn, it's current situation and how to make it better, considering we're struggling so badly

Clum actually told us some cool history. After HnH stopped writing its own musicals every year, they were actually tied to the music department and had a paid orchestra and conductor for every show. They also always had a musical director that was faculty, and would sell out their shows as soon as they posted what they were doing. They were just that popular around campus. I guess Duke has a lot more stuff going on now. He also told us about some duke alums that were actually in HnH, including some dudes who are in NY today producing and music directing stuff! crazy! he gave us their emails and told us to get in touch with them.

Pretty much our game plan is to crank out and get through Godspell, rock with Reefer Madness, and then do something really well known in spring, whether we like it or not, just because we know it can sell, cuz we need the money SO BAD. Not to mention we need to start fixing all the Theater Ops relations that a few people have messed up recently (cough jones lerman cough). It was a fun talk, we all enjoyed it and got pretty pumped up about making things better.

So much that when we got back to Langton Close we went into the 1C kitchen and talked more about our plans for the fall. should be a busy fall. After that, we talked about how Ted played Frederick in A Little Night Music his junior year of high school and had the show on his computer so we went and watched it. it was so cute. Id LOVE it if Duke did that, but HnH cant because it's not well known enough (stupid stupid stupid. why cant people just go see shows to support the arts?? whether it has a big name or not doesnt mean its not a good production).

AFter that it was pretty much time to go to the theater: Jerusalm, a new play by Jez Butterworth (nice name huh). This is his second show produced this year!  But his shows are so wellknown for being so good that this show, though completely new, was completely sold out a couple weeks after tickets went on sale. And we saw it after the very first week!

it was performed at teh Royal Court Theatre, which is one of the most prestigious theaters in England; in the 1890s it was known for doing plays with real social significance and issues, in a very wealthy part of london (Sloane Square). Even snotty, upper class girls became known as "Sloanes." Anyway, to this day, it has remained a theater that you know when you go, you will be shaken up a bit. and oh boy we were. 

Jerusalem, looks at sort of what is going on in contemporary England and how it relates to English past and ideals through the eyes of English countryside. There are some eerie traditions and customs that rang out in this play, but it was incredible.

It starred Mark Rylance as Johnny Rooster Byron, who was recently just in Boeing Boeing on Broadway, but has done tons of stuff, lots with the Royal Shakespeare Company, etc. 

A great supporting role was Mackenzie Crook who played Ginger (great role), who was actually in the British version of The Office (which was actually the original! America stole it from them! apparently, theirs was wittier!), but most people would recognize Mackenzie from a single role: the pirate with the fake eye in Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3. It's amazing to see him acting like a normal human being, though Ginger wasn't all that normal. 

The show was LONG! 3 hours and 10 minutes! and two intermissions! The first two act were extremely funny and the third was incredibly depressing, and I think many of us are still confused about what went on there. SO I think we'll talk to Clum about it on monday and see if we can sort anything out. But I liked it 

Notable stuff:

-Giant Story "you're sitting on it." "But in passing, he did mention he built Stonehenge"

-the entire beginning of teh play, from Phaedra singing to the fiesta, to Lee waking up inside the sofa, hahaha

-Ginger's stories about Rooster jumpin over stuff. "then at the flintock Fair, 1981, he died."

-Rooster's story to dawn about getting kidnapped by four Nigerians last week. "they said they'd let me go if I said I was sorry." ...."so that was a rough few days. Apart from that, mustn't grumble." 

-Troy's monologue to Rooster. so sad. 

-the set was awesome! there were trees and grass and a real turtle, fish and chickens! very real, very cool.  very sad. :(

Friday I slept in after playing lots of werewolf the night before, and we didn't have class today. I don't really know why other than that Clum decided to let us have another long weekend. i was really disappointed about not being able to go to Belfast with geoff and eugenie to see northern Ireland. Cameron and I decided to go student rush a couple shows and see what we could get. WE went over to Chicago an hour early, and got student price, FRONT ROW TICKETS! AHHHHHHH. we had an hour after that and went to this famous bookstore, Foyles, and looked at musical theater sheet music for awhile and then went back. Taty was there, she had gotten a ticket the night before, not student rush. It was AWESOME! really really different from the movie, but i wish the stupid rights would get released because there's zero set and HnH could so do it. bleh. We liked it a lot. I loved Mr. Cellophane, and of course all the big dance numbers! :) the court scene was really funny too. Velma Kelly was Fabulous! Michelle Williams, actually (one of the three girls from Destiny's Child other than Beyonce and Kelly...) played Roxie. She did okay, but messed up the choreography a lot. it was weird because the lady who played Velma really upstaged her she was so good. But the dancing was still a lot of fun and we liked it a lot. Mama Morton sang some of her song to Cameron, too! (So boost me up my ladder kid...!) hehe it was so funny! At the end of her song she pointed and winked at him.  

After the show we RAN over to the Pheonix Theater to see if we could get tickets to Blood Brothers the musical with book, music, and lyrics by Willy Russell (Very cohesive!). it started at 7:45 and we got out at 7:20 and we got tickets on house left in row G. SWEET. Blood Brothers is in its 20th year at West End, and we didn't know anything about it other than that it had gotten great reviews. I was a little bummed to find out the lead role was being filled by an understudy who usually plays a supporting so a lot of roles got shifted around. But not the two lead guys so that was good. turns out, IT WAS AMAZING. SO GOOD. IM SO GLAD we stumbled into that one. it's the tale of two twin brothers who are separated at birth a sort of curse that follows them through life. It was SO GOOD. so sad at the end. very funny though. The two lead men have to play 8 year olds, 14 year olds, 18 year olds, and adults and were fabulous! the lead lady, too, though an understudy, was INCREDIBLE. i cant imagine what the regular lady was like because she was SO GOOD. Cam really wants HnH to do it, andthough it's not big name, man I wouldnt mind doing that. i dont really know what part id fit into, Cam thinks Linda, but it was still a great show. Im so glad we went. standing ovation too, which was great, well deserved. The show ends really sad, and the actors were so emotionally committted that for their first bow they were all crying. haha. by the fourth time coming out to bow they started smiling though. very good. 

and very good day! you would think that wed want a break from theater when we dont have an assigned show, but when there is all this FABULOUS theater going on in London, it's hard to get enough of it. and i think i could sit and watch shows for the rest of my life haha. so great. Id be a theater critic to do that, but i'm definitely not critical enough (omg it was so good! so good! haha) 

anyway, we're going to need to ask clum why he didn't get us tickets for that. i can understand chicago, but blood brothers was amazing. 

the rest of the weekend really just includes the Science Museum, laundry, papers, memorizing lines, blocking and working on songs, etc. i really need to play catch up. so doesnt sound as amazing as the past couple weeks have been, but im still happy to get things done.

So there you have it! I'm all caught up woot! I know nothing was really awe-inspiring, but at least I got everything down so i won't forget. Maybe this weekend can include some more ponderous writing. 

good night!

much love,

Becca