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

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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

All the broken bits that make you trip up and grassy bits in between.

The idea of catching up the last three and a half days is a little overwhelming. And each day was so awesome that to describe every detail of each day is crazy. So. I have an hour. And you will get, that much of information. unless Eugenie comes back, because I need to talk to her. haha. 

Neal left off on saturday night, the Jack the Ripper Tour. Even right now, four days later, it gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about that tour. It'd be cool for you guys to do (mom, dad, sarah) when you come sometime...but i probably won't tag along. haha. yucky. 

Sunday morning we went over to the museum area of South Kensington early because we had a lot to do that day. We did Natural History first, since I kinda knew my way around there and knew we could do it fast. We selected exhibits: Dinosaurs (still my favorite, haha), other fossils, and then we did the whole Earth section which i hadn't done yet. They had an earthquake simulator that was kinda lame but still a lot of fun. We saw a lot. Then we ran over to Victoria and Albert and had a picnic on the lawn in the middle of the museum, which sandwiches, pasta salad, and i had a Mocha cuz it was cold out. Then we did V&A. I love the V&A. It has SO much in it, and all of is not only interesting, but beautiful. We just ran through my favorite exhibits there too because we didn't have long: Sculptures, old Britain (included old time Bookmaking), Stained Glass, Jewelry, Fashion, Theater and Performance, and ran through gold and silver. I love that museum.

On our way back to Russell Square station we picked up cheap milkshakes from this place just outside, despite the cold. This milkshake place is cool  because the guy just has a bunch of english chocolate bars (which you can't buy themselves, kinda funny) and you pick your chocolate bar and he adds vanilla ice cream and makes a milkshake. yum. Our new favorite candy/milkshake is bueno bars (chocolate flaky crust and hazelnut filling mmm), but I'm going to get a Rolo bar milkshake next time (chocolate with soft toffee inside...mmmmm). We drank them as we went over to Sadler's Wells Theatre to see Dorian Gray (#2 for me and first time for neal). Again, it was excellent, but the audience was a lot lamer (sunday matinee, go figure). so awesome. i love dancing. 

We were going to try to do Science Museum after, but everything closes ridiculously early on Sundays here, so I decided to show Neal Covent Garden, what used to be an old fruit and vegetable market that has been turned into a lot of shops and restaurants and is overall just a really cool area. We went to a Wagamama nearby, which is a japanese chain i've been wanting to try. We loved it! we got chicken and vegetable dumplings and then got a pasta (wagamama is known for its noodle dishes) with chicken, prawns, and peppers. SO good! but we did have a hard time eating pasta with chopsticks! oh boy! Cool thing about asian restaurants in London: you have to ASK if you want silverware....and no one does. So, under pressure, I've gotten a lot better at using them. I met my match with pasta though. that was intense, but I definitely made less of a mess than Neal did! :)

After wagamama we walked around and watched a street performer for awhile (there were also a bunch of crazy people statues - a dog in a doghouse, an invisible mad, etc!) then as we were leaving we walked by a BEN's Cookies!!!!!!! from Oxford!!! I was so happy we got a small box of all different kinds and were off to BFI IMAX, the largest movie screen in  Britain to see Harry Potter 6!

We got the only tickets left...front row center, which if you can imagine in an imax, is huge, daniel radcliffe's fae was like 20 feet tall. Not to mention, the first twelve minutes were in 3-D so it was pretty trippy. but we leaned back as best we could and enjoyed our cookies :)

As for Harry Potter... it was good. I feel bad, saying "sorry it really wasn't the most epic thing I'd ever seen in my life." I still have a lot of issues with some people in the movie who cant act. and I think I'm finally getting too old for the HP fan frenzy. I'll just be glad when all the movies are over truthfully. It was a good movie.

My favorite part of the movie, however, had nothing to do with HP itself, but just the girl who played Lavender Brown, Jessica Cave (aka Jessie), who had played the academic genius Thomasina in Arcadia which we saw two weeks ago. Though I liked her as Lavender a lot better, I thought it was crazy how I was like 5 rows away from her! I love famous people in London because they're everywhere!!!

Anyway, here's what she looked like in Arcadia, for all you HP readers...

(little different, eh?)

So the experience of seeing harry potter, was overall, sorry to say, a little more fun than the movie itself, but we had a great time.

Worst part of the day was the fact that my weird sickness came back, harder than it's ever been back before, I cried literally all day because my eyes were so watery, by the end of the day my face was all red and puffy and i looked terrible. :( not fun. next day it was okay and then on tuesday i was fine. so weird. 

Waterloo underground station was closed after HP and that was annoying. this policeman asked me "where are you going?" and I was like "russell square" and he just said "wrong answer." was a total jerk and unhelpful. we ended up taking a taxi, it didnt end up being too expensive and the guy was nice and brought us right to Langton Close. 

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Okay I'm going to stop here. I talked to geoff and eugenie for a little bit while writing this and now have run out of time. Off to see La Cage Aux Folles tonight. Heard we're in the 2nd row. Not really sure I want to be that close to see every....detail. should be interesting though. Havent seen the show done professionally anyway (unless Mark IV is really professional???) i'll cover monday, tuesday, and today after the show tonight.  But I'll give out some news right now:

-We also got assigned our new scenes, I'm with Geoff again! crazy, we're the only two that are together again. Our scene is from A Streetcar Named Desire and I'll be playing Blanche, which is unlike any other character I've played before so should be a difficult/but definitely fun challenge! I'm VERY excited. :)

-I'll be singing Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World at the Musical Mock Audition next week. I talked to Clum and he actually recommended it for me so I'm going to do it! We'll be critiqued by three famous people (haha), including Matt Ryan who has musical directed tons of stuff here, and started his career when he played Oliver as a child, the musical director of Mamma Mia! (london - can't recall his name right now, ill get back to you), and Bob West (who was the production coordinator for some little shows like Cats, Phantom, les Mis, Miss Saigain, etc, and does a lot of casting for shows, etc)

-Cameron, Ted, Kyle, and I are getting lunch with Clum tomorrow to talk about how to improve Hoof n Horn so that'll be fun.

okay, off to the show! more later 

bec

"Here's a preserved kidney. I ate the other half. Catch me when you can."

Neal wanted an opportunity to write in my Duke in London blog, since it is so full of the works of insightful and knowledgeable writers (teehee), and since I'm still a little terrified from this evening's tour, I'm going to go read a book so I can get my mind off things so I can sleep. Oh boy.

So over to you, Neal, Saturday July 18th

Much Love,

Becca

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So, today was an awesome day. Bec made me wake up this morning at 7:30 for a surprise tour that she's been talking about for awhile. She got us tickets for a short cruise on the Thames! We went to where we were supposed to get on the boat, but the ticket window was closed and the pier was a bit "dodgy" as they say here. The boat ended up coming on time though and we had a great time. The ride lasted about 40 minutes and took us along the Thames from Parliament to the Tower of London. We had a great guide for the cruise, he seemed like he was having a blast giving the tour. Some notable buildings or attractions we passed by were the London Eye, the world's largest freestanding stone column, Sir Francis Drake's ship that sailed around the world (it was amazing seeing how tiny it actually was and thinking about a crew of 80 sailing on it), London Bridge, the Globe, and several other old buildings. 

We got off the boat at the Tower of London and went inside for the tour. As a typical American tourist, I pictured the Tower of London as a single tower. Not even close. We took a tour guided by a Yeoman Warden, who gave us a great summary of the history of the castle and pointed out several interesting parts of the castle. He started by telling us what the tower was used for; how it was most well known as a prison. So many people were executed there, or on a hill nearby, and it's amazing to think that the public came to these executions for entertainment. "Let's go watch someone get beheaded!" Sounds like a blast. The guide then showed us traitor's gate which provided a secret entrance through which prisoners were often brought into the castle. Next he took us to the chapel at the tower of London, and told us about Ann Boelyn, one of Henry VII's wives who was convicted of 27 or 28 crimes including treason and insulting King Henry, and was eventually beheaded inside the castle grounds. He also told us about the White Tower, the central, palace-like portion of the castle. The White Tower has a small bunch of ravens living in or around it, and apparently one of the kings claimed that when the ravens left the grounds, the tower would crumble and fall. Our guide pointed out that to make sure this didn't happen, several ravens were kept in cages. 

After our tour with the guide, Bec and I explored the castle on our own. We got to see the Crown Jewels, which were absolutely amazing. One of the scepters held the world's largest pure diamond, weighing in at over 500 karats. I thought the swords were the most interesting of the jewels, just because their design was so ornate and detailed. Bec really liked the giant golden bowls and plates that were really intricately carved. 

Once we'd seen the jewels, we went inside the White Tower to visit the special exhibit that was on display at the Tower of London. It was called "Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill" and was basically a collection of Henry VIII's clothing and armor. He had so many different types of armor, from jousting armor to full combat armor to ceremonial armor, the exhibit had it all. He was a very large man, so the armored suits were huge and very imposing. Apparently his chest measured 44 inches around so the armor was even bigger than that. The exhibit also displayed many different types of weaponry Henry used including his jousting lance, broadsword, and some of his guns. 

We got some fish and chips after seeing the Tower of London (My first fish and chips in London!). Unfortunately the meal was really gross. In hindsight, we should've know it wouldn't be too good because we got it at a little stand outside the tower, a perfect place for a tourist trap. Still hungry, we got some ice cream and took a nice walk along the Thames to St. Paul's Cathedral.

The cathedral was BEAUTIFUL! The architecture inside there is just amazing, and the mosaics that cover most of the ceiling are incredibly intricate. We decided to do an audio tour of the cathedral, which turned out to be really interesting, although rather long winded. We decided to see the Whispering Gallery first, a circular balcony inside the dome of the cathedral where apparently, you can whisper into the wall on one side of the circle and a person on the opposite side can hear you. Unfortunately, we tried this and couldn't figure it out. (Dr. and Mrs. Stone, we wished you were there so you could show us how it worked!) But just being up in the dome was amazing. Although it was a long climb up there (259 steps!) we got a great view of the paintings on the inside of the dome that had been put up when the cathedral was built. The site of St. Paul's had been the home of a cathedral since 600 AD, although it was renovated several times. Following the great fire of London, the cathedral burned down, and the current version of St. Paul's was built. We learned that the designer, Christopher Wren, had had a difficult time getting his design approved. The city wanted the cathedral to have a steeple, while Wren wanted a dome. He finally convinced the city to allow him to build a small dome and a small steeple, but in the process of building it, he used his artistic liberty and scrap the steeple, and built a larger dome in it's place. 

From the Whispering Gallery, we took an additional 119 stairs up to a higher level of the cathedral where we were able to go outside on another balcony around the upper dome, providing an amazing view of the city. After our long trip down, we continued the audio tour of the cathedral towards the altar. Interestingly, a great part of the altar was dedicated to Americans who had fought in the Battle of Britain. In fact, on the back wall the ornate decorations included several American birds including the bald eagle, as well as other common American symbols. We just both found it interesting that they used the cathedral to honor the Americans. We then went down in the crypts beneath the church and saw four or five tombs that were all that survived the fire that burned down the older cathedral. We also saw the tomb of Wren, the designer, and wondered if he and the others really wanted to be burried in a place crowded by tourists every day. We tried to get a couple of pictures of the main floor of the cathedral but the staff were very strict about no photography. 

After that, we went looking for a Cork and Bottle for dinner, but couldn't find it, so we ended up getting snacks and headed over to a new part of London that neither of us had been too for the Jack the Ripper tour. We got there early so we tried to find some more food, but after walking nearly half a mile in both directions from the tube station, we found that almost every single restaurant was closed. Why the were closed on a Saturday, I have no idea, but it was very frustrating. We ended up just sitting in a Burger King to wait for the tour to start. It was worth it though. The lady who gave our tour took us around the area and showed us the buildings or where the buildings had been where Jack the Ripper murdered his victims. According to our guide, Jack was the first recognized serial killer. He attacked prostitutes, mostly in their forties, and mutilated their bodies. He was never caught, and was given the name Jack the Ripper by a journalist who sent a letter to the chief of  police pretending that he (the journalist) was the murderer. It was a really creepy story, and it was amazing how many of the original buildings were still standing!

We had an awesome day today! I definitely learned a lot and I think Bec did too. Tomorrow, we're seeing Dorian Gray, Harry Potter, and some more museums!

Sorry I'm not as elaborate as Becca usually is but I just wanted to give this a shot. It makes me appreciate how hard she's been working on this!

No pictures today since most of them were on my camera and I forgot my cord to upload pictures to the computer, but once I get home I'll e-mail some to Bec so she can put them up. 

- Neal

If then true lovers have been ever crossed, it stands as an edict in destiny - Shakespeare

These past few days have been pretty intense. Not only have we been seeing some awesome theater, but our Shakespeare performances critiqued by William Houston and Paul Ready and observed by the new head of the Duke Theatre Studies Dept, as well as the rest of the group and Clum, BUT Neal got here Wednesday morning and since then we've been going non-stop.

Dorian Gray. 

-Choreographer Matthew Bourne started off doing choreo for musicals and whatnot and then started his own company, New Adventures, which young dancers from the Royal Ballet Comapny fed into. 

-Twelve years ago he did an adaptation of Swan Lake that has taken off pretty much everywhere. There was tons of Princess Diana allusions, as well as a controversial twist of having the swans be males. (lots of "Oh my goodness the lead male dancing with another lead male?"; this was funny at the Q&A session with Matthew Bourne because he was like "well, first of all, it's a male SWAN.")  [see the video of four little swans from Swan Lake in the previous post.]. His swan lake was apparently on Broadway for 6 months, too. 

-Other random fact: Anyone see Billy Elliott the movie?? At the end, when Billy has grown up and is a professional dancer, we watch him dance literally in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. the part is played by Adam Cooper who actually played the swan in his Swan Lake. talk about cool. 

-He's done tons of other adaptations, including Cinderella, the Nutcracker, Edward Scissorhands (looks really interesting!). He's definitely been trying to popularize dance, making it more of a modern thing that everyone can enjoy, not just dancer people. 

-His Dorian Gray, obviously is an adaptations of Oscar Wilde's. Taking a contemporary approach, however, the story deals with photography rather than art. 

-Quick update for those who don't remember Oscar Wilde's: 1890, Wilde was moving into a sex and drugs, etc phase, (five years later he would be imprisoned) and was completed devoted to aestheticism (beauty, artistic experience, etc) which led him to a more "living for pleasure" stance. Dorian is a wealthy young man and an artist who is in love him paints a portrait of him. Dorian starts to experience..literally everything, falls in love with a Shakespearean actress, but when she falls in love with him, she can't act as well anymore beacuse she has real emotions now, not acting, and then he pretty much shuns her because she's not a good actress anymore. (she kills herself, and he doesn't really mind it, no conscience.) Dorian never ages, but the portrait does (pretty much the inside of him. It shows him demented and ugly and going crazy from all the bad things in the world. He ends up killing the painter when the painter tries to see the portrait. he dies and everyone sees it, oh my

Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray

-First of all the theater was pretty cool, Sadler Wells. It was actually only a fifteen minute walk from Langton Close. The Old Vic theater was taken over by some lady who created the National Tehater of Great Britain company and was really trying to make more theater "for the masses" so everyone could see it. She took over Sadler Wells, which was in a really crummy area (at the time) and started a ballet company (which would become the Royal Ballet company), and an opera company (which would bcome the English National opera). Both companies moved out and in the mid90s, England had a national lottery and teh first money went to the arts. They made Sadler Wells a premiere dance theater, but they tore down the original theater and built it strictly for dance. it has 1800 seats today, but felt pretty small. Matthew Bourne's Company has been there for about 1/2 a year. 

-the show was a dance drama, Dorian accidentally slips into the photography and fashion world when he is a waiter at a high class party with a photography company. He captures a photographer's eyes, who pretty mcuh becomes obsessed with and makes him famous. One of the main products he models for is a male cologne called Immortal, which they show a poster of in act 1 and then later on in act 2 which shows him all demented and torn up and the IM is torn of immortal... He falls in love with everyone, goes crazy, sex, drugs, and alcohol (all the time). Falls in love with a dancer in Romeo and Juliet (a male, but supposed to be parallel the shakespearean actress in the book), and he eventually kills himself and Dorian doesn't really do anything. He kills the photographer when he comes back, etc etc. Dancing to rock and electronic music!

-the character dorian gray, in this show, was created for Richard Windsor, who played him. He's been playing lead roles in matthew bourne's shows since he was 19 and he's 27 now. 

-It was awesome!!!! Amazing dancing. and it was so cool to see a dance show that incorporated some ballet elements, but was mostly modern so it was very interesting to watch. Not to mention the guys were doing crazy acrobatic tricks and junk because they were so muscular! it was amazing

-Dorian has this doppelganger, or alter-ego, sort of evil twin that shows up and is really creepy. They had a really cool duet where they made all the same movements; it was neat to watch. The double turns out to be the calm, collected, and almost purer Dorian, whereas Dorian is slowly growing more crazy watching him follow through all of his same motions. then he kills the doppelganger and dies. heh. 

-SO GOOD. and after the show Matthew Bourne the choreographer held a Q&A session that was really cool. He was really down to earth, which i sorta was expecting a "Hey, I'm Mr. Choreographer. Bow down." (sorry to be stereotypical), but he was really interesting and direct with answering his questions. Coolest things I learned is that he never pre-choreographs anything before coming to rehearsal. I don't know what I'd do if I tired to do that for a hoof n Horn rehearsal. ha!

-Anyway, after telling Neal all about the show, he said he really wanted to go and it's closing this weekend, too, so we got cheap tickets for Sunday Matinee haha, but you'll hear more about him in a sec.

After the show and the Q&A session we came back and I talked to Neal through his new phone right before his second flight took off and then Cameron and I stayed up pretty late talking about how to make Hoof n Horn better. I don't think we really came up with much, but we're both thinking about it. He said he wants to get all the Hoof n Hornies together before the programs over with Clum and talk to him about what he thinks we could do to make it better. so that was intersting

Wednesday July 15th

I had to get up early so that I could wait for Neal outside Langton Close, since he didn't have a key and I didn't know if the front office people were gonna be there. I've been reading Q&A (lol, not the session with Matthew Bourne, but the book that the movie Slumdog Millionaire is based on); it's good so far. Neal got here by a really nice taxi driver! got him all checked in and said, take a nap, we have a long day ahead! and then I went downstairs to class. 

Troilus and Cressida

-Interesting fact: we're not entirely sure that Troilus and Cressida was ever actually performed during Shakespeare's time. 300 years later, the Old vic picked it up and it's been pretty popular since then, especially in war time (vietname, WWII). 

-It's another "problem play." There aren't any sympathetic characters really, no one's especially likeable, many are stupid. There's tons of characters and it is especially difficult to tell how Shakespeare wants us to feel about these characters. and there's two plays going on: the trojan war, and Troilus and Cressida. 

-It is generally agreed that shakespeare's plays seem so long to us because they were originally spoken much faster than we are even capable of today. back then, society was based on oral communication. That's how they got everything. It takes audiences much longer to comprehend words today. Also, there's some controversy over how much literal movement and action there was performed in his shows. Today, we typically do shakespeare over the top, lots of movement and very theatrical. Hence, we cut a lot today. 

Anyway, Neal got up and i made peanut butter and nutella toast sandwiches (yuuuummm) and then we were off to Shakespeare's Globe! after getting him an Oyster Card (tube card) for the week. 

Show was good. Well, I liked it. It was SO LONG though. Well acted, but i think everyone had a lot of issues with it. Which ended up being cool because in class the next day with Clum we discussed Production decisions and directorial choices and how they affect teh show and whether they work or not, and we all pretty much tore apart Troilus and Cressida. The show itself is actually only in its 2nd preview, so hopefully they'll change some of the things we discussed, ie having a little boy kill hector with a gun in a period performance??? errr....that was weird. I think Neal really struggled with those wooden benches, haha, but Clum got us seats together so that was nice. 

After that we peaced and went over to Trafalgar Square just to look around and then went to the National Gallery for like half an hour because they were closing (the show ran much longer than I thought it would!). Then we decided to go out to eat, and we went to the nicest restaurant I've been to since we went out to eat with Clum: ie we went to a 8-10 pound main meal restuarant. IT WAS AMAZING. We shared chips and queso and quesadillas and I think i was the happiest I've been in awhile simply because I haven't had real food in so long seems like. 

After that I took him over to Leicester Swaure for awhile just to look around at all the west end theaters and came up to the Garrick Theater, where A Little Night Music was at. I was like "Oh neal, it was SO Good." and then we saw a sign that said Closing July 25th, and i was like "mmm, what time is it?" Neal "7:18."  "show starts at 7:30 p.m. you know what, i'll just go ask" I went up to the box office and was liek 'do you have two seats together anywhere." and he said 'Yeah actually I do, in row E in Stalls center." !!!!!! (stalls is the floor here). Then I said "Do you have a student rate?" "Yes. Would you like them?" "Yes please." and we went and saw it!!! SO GOOD, i love that show. Still on eof my favorites so far on teh program. Neal loved it too, but i think he was dying of exhaustion but told me he was so glad we went. 

Came home, Geoff and I worked on our scene a couple times and then went to bed. 

Thursday July 16th

Class - discussion

-Geoff and I work scene work for an hour.

then neal and I went over to Harrod's with some kids to look around. it was fun. Harrod's has EVERYTHING! technology, book store, kids toy store, clothes, candy, chocolate, pets, shoes, cars, vacation planners. it's gigantic! and beautiful, too. Neal and I got 6 chocolates and three mini cupcakes for desert at night. :) It was Tyler's birthday and she wanted to celebrate at Laduree. So Tyler, Chelsea, John, Eugenie, Geoff, Rachel, Neal and I (and then later Taty, Robert, and Kristina), went to Laduree and had High Tea! Just croissants, macaroons, finger sandwiches and tea, but it was SOO much fun and I think everyone had a an amazing time. It was one of teh coolest things I've done so far, High Tea in London. Lovely. 

After that we headed out to the show (Apologia by Alexi Caye Campbell) because it was in Zone two. Turns out it's on top of this pub and called Bush Theater, which is apparently a really prestigious fringe (over a pub) theater. We walked in and were like "WHOA, there's no room in here." it was 100 seats arranged in three rows in a theater-in-the-round. and the stage was a kitchen table and kitchen on the back wall. We were pretty sitting in the kitchen. We WERE sitting in the kitchen. 

Apologia 

-pronounced Ap-oh-low-jah ( I think??), this is Campbell's 2nd play! His first was a really big sucess, so crazy to just write a play and then have it get taken off like that!

-Apologia -type of literature that people write to justify or explain their lives, it's done by some releigious writers to explain why they should go to heaven or well and it's kinda like self-defense, stream of consciousness writing

-the play itself is about a mother who is an art historian who was a big political protester int he 60s whatnot, and has just finished her "Memoirs" which is an autobiography of herself, but leaves on two major details: Her two sons.  The play centers around a family gathering for the mother's birthday and the two sons are angry and bitter about their mother failing to mention their existence in her entire life memoirs. At the same time, we find out through the play how difficult their childhood was and that she pretty much abandoned them anyway and that's why she couldnt talk about them in her book, she just couldnt. there are a couple other characters too, the mother's friend from teh 60s, one son's fiancee and the other's gf (ex by the end of the play)

-It was...amazing. i know my blogs are full of overused adjectives, but I run out of words when trying to explain how much I liked something. It was fantastic. The focus the intensity. by the end of the play I really felt like we as the audience had journeyed with them through all of that. They were so dedicated, and into and all really good actors (minus one girls attempt at an American accent, oh boy. We all talked about at intermission how we couldnt tell where seh was from because she was trying to combine every american accent - southern, Boston, New York, we were like, Who are you??) haha, but she was still great, hard part to play. 

-Neal loved it, too!

-afterwards we got to talk to the playwright and he signed all of our programs. We also talked to the lady who played the mother but she was kinda in a hurry. The playwright, Alexi Caye Campbell, was very nice, though Clum says he's being pretty show-offy about getting famous so fast, I thought he was really nice and really down to earth (I say those two words a lot now too huh)

After the show we came back and Geoff and I worked our scene for awhile and then I talked to Sarah. i miss her a lot. i wish I coulda been in Richmond last night.

Friday, July 17th

(this might be getting shorter and shorter...I'm exhausted)

-Geoffa nd I woke up early and rehearsed our scene

-Geoff and I performed our scene before everyone. it went really well. and I'm proud of him more than anything because for having never really done this before, he worked his butt off to get to the level he was at today. It was really nice to have a guy who was really dedicated on doing well too. Anyway, we did great. Will and Paul said my intensity and emotions were great, they could really tell how in it I was, and they said to consider taking more risks and to watch the end of each line so that I dont drop anything. Good criticisms. All the other scenes went really well, too. i was proud of our group. Special shout-outs to Chelsea's Spaniel impression, Ted's awesomeness, Alex's falling in love with Helena, and Taty's attitude. they were all great. I'm excited to start working on some contemporary scenes after the break though. Shakespeare, you are so difficult. I overheard the new Duke Theater dept lady telling Clum though that "I guess we're going to have to start doing some more Shakespeare..." ....oh boy. 

-Yay, excitement, break. It was a little bittersweet. We're halfway done and everyone was leaving to go to different places. Some to Amsterdam, Some to Barcelona, Some to Paris and some staying here. So it was sad. Not to mention, no shows for five days. :( yuck. Except Neal and I get to see Dorian Gray on Sunday!

-I made Neal lunch and then we headed over to the tourist-y area, and after a while of searching for the door, we found the entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. We both loved it. It came with a free audio guide tour, and I think we both learned a lot. It was crazy to think they used some of those rooms during WWII right when they were being bombed, the rooms were so tiny and gross, but it was very interesting, and lovely to go to a museum that I would have done with my parents if they had been here. Cool history, educational stuff...Even if it costs 10 pounds, oh my. It was well worth it, too. 

-Then we went to the Tate Britain, which has artwork from 1500 to present. Some stuff was really interesting, but I think I like the National Gallery better. It was kinda in the middle of nowhere so I'm glad we took care of that so i don't have to go back, heh.

-I showed him the National Theater and then for dinner we went to a cheap italian chain I've been wanting to try, Strada, and shared bread and pizza, and that was yummy. It started raining and got really cold though. 

-We walked around this bookstore for awhile to kill time because it was FREEZING outside and then we finally went over and got our tickets for London Eye. and did the Eye at night!. Well, it's still evening light at 9:30 pm but it got a little darker as we did it, SOOOO pretty, and very nice. Our ...train, chair, ....thing, only had one other couple in it too so I was gald we didn't have to deal with any other people. i was pretty impressed with my ability to point things out, but I still couldn't figure out a couple things. We had a really nice time, despite how frigid we were. 

Overall, the past three days have been just awesome. And their sheer awesomeness has caused me to not be able to write for awhile, sorry about that. Looks like the next four days are going to be completely jam packed anyway.

Tomorrow, Boat Ride down the Thames (Shhhhhh! Neal still doesnt know yet!), and then we're doing St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, London Bridge, maybe Imperial war museum, dinner somewhere, and then we're doing the Jack the Ripper Tour tomorrow night! So excited, I think we'll both wear jeans and hoodies tomorrow though. 

Gotta get up early!

much love,

becca

p.s. Neal's in charge of pictures this weekend and forgot to bring his camera cord so I'm going to be seriously lacking on pictures for awhile. Here's one i took of him at Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the back!

Immortal.

Dorian Gray was amazing! 

ill talk more later about it, but I found a youtube on it. It's weird, it doesn't really show any of the amazing stuff they did, but it gives you a vibe anyway. Keep in mind it's an adaptation of Dorian Gray. Generally about a painting of Dorian, tonight's show was based on photography (fashion, sex, alcohol) of the present. and it worked amazingly.  After that is actually a youtube of Matthew Bourne's (choreographer) Swan Lake. ....It's a little different than you would expect. ....   ;)

Had a blast today, cant wait to see Troilus and Cressida tomorrow at the Globe with NEAL here!!

Much love,

Bec