Sunday, July 12, 2009
Today, was a get a ton of work done day for Becca. And I did! No procrastinating or messing aorund or anything! Got up, showered, did laundry, got Neal and I tickets to do something (more later haha), worked on papers for a bit, read over the story of Troilus and Cressida because I could barely understand it, read a little bit about A Winter's Tale, went to Waitrose (I'm really starting to like that grocery store, even though it doesn't even compare to Publix, I know where everything I need is), got a whole bunch of yummy breakfast and lunch food for the next couple weeks and for Neal, had to put some in my backpack because I couldnt carry it all, got a Starbucks (my one sidetrack), papers, worked on my scene with Geoff. and that was about it. A few kids went to Bath today, but since I'm going with Neal, I just hung around. But it was very productive so I was very pleased with myself.
Only interesting story is that the laundry machines here stink; that might just be because of Langton Close, but it still stunk. 2 pounds to wash, and then it SAYS 20 pence to dry. turns out 20 pence is only for twelve minutes! so, I had to go up and down stairs a million times to keep puttin gmoney in there to get 12 more minutes. Turns out, if you just put a pound in and push the settings button that you want five times, you get 60 minutes. thanks for the instructions laundry machines. that took awhile.
Monday July 13, 2009
Schoool:
In class on Monday we first talked about Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Dorian Gray to start prepping us for the beginning of this week's shows.
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
This show, is probably the one show I know least about, and that's simply because it was about history I didn't really know. Written in 1984 by Frank McGuinness, Observe the Sons is about Ireland's perspective of World War I, specifically the area of Ulster., which is in northern Ireland, majority is Protestant, and still part of the UK. SO first off, we really needed to know some prior Irish history to lead up to WWI, and understand a little bit about Irish Drama as well, though it was written in 1984, it was still by an Irishman.
-The Irish Republic founded after the war, broke off from Ireland, and the playwright was actually part of Ulster that went to the Republic. He actually did some adaptations of Ibsen and Chekhov works, but Observe the Sons was his first major success.
-The Sons of Ulster, aka Orange Men (William of Orange was their hero...hehe), were volunteers fighting with Britain in WWI
-They had no idea what they were really fighting for, but were willing to give up their lives for Britain.
-The Somme was arguably the worst battle of WWI; on teh first day 28,000 people were killed and 57,000 were injured. By the finish of the battle, 1.5 million people had been severely injured or killed
-In part of the play they reenact the Battle of the Boyne, between King James II (who had been taken off the english throne and got some irish catholics to fight with him) and William of Orange. Orange won. We didn't see that part, but it was actually completely hilarious how they reenacted it: chicken-fight style. The men carrying the guys on their shoulders were their horses and it was so funny. Ended sadly though
-Observe the Sons is divided into neat little sections broken up;
1) Monologue in the present with Piper, the craziest of the 8 men we observe on stage (literally), and we can see how he is haunted by waht happened, he's pretty much a living ghost; this monologue, in my opinion, is very powerful, but was poorly delivered.
2) Initiation: France 1916, barracks, 8 ulstermen meet, and the audience realizes how incompetent everything is, the guys have no idea what they're getting themselves into, theirs not enough supplies, we can see literal tensions, class and socioeconomic, age tensions, etc. Young Piper is their and an aristocrat, a failed sculptor (hahaha, this part of the show was really funny), says he married a whore and killed her (ahhh, sadly, this part was also hilarious, you can also always know when things are really funny because Alex Ellinport leans forward in his chair to laugh, haha).
3) The men are back in Belfast on leave five months later. 4 pairs of friends have developed and we observed them in four different places in Belfast. We can see male bonding and companionship, from fighting to love. This personally was my favorite scene because even though they were all in four different places on teh stage, the lighting was really cool and the scenes would jump back and forth to the different locations and lines would be intermixed with each other until they were all doing their scenes together on stage talking to teh other guy with them in a different location. Confusing to explain, but it was really cool and really intense. Lots of different things going on at the same time, which I always love in theater.
4) in the trenches right before the the battle of the Somme, they all talk and that's when they reenact the Battle of the Boyne.
5) the Older Piper comes back on stage and says Ulster a bunch, and they chant, and young Piper knows everyone's going to die and the play ends with them all heading out to die except Piper. :(
Though plays about wars are generally not my thing, this show included the best all-around acting cast. except older piper. but the eight younger guys were all incredibly talented. Every single one of them was SO IN IT, you could sense it all the time, and they were great. all irish, too! And Will Houston (you'll hear about later), is also from that exact part of Ireland, so that was pretty cool. I liked it A LOT. I liked the theater a lot, too, even though the boys aren't happy if the seats aren't completely squishy and there's not enough leg room. I didn't notice, teehee. Anyway, all eight actors were amazing and I'm really glad that we're seeing all different types of theater, it's been really eye-opening.
Quotes I liked:
"Did you intend for us to continue to see ghosts?"
"They taught me to believe from the depths of their belief."
"I knew he would die because he was turning from earth into air."
"You have to take risks in this life" (peeling an apple metaphor)
"I'm sorry. I get carried away when I'm right" (hehe :) )
"red hand, red sky"
"Without faith, how could a boy grow into a man?"
"We're all on the titanic. We're all going down."
"We're not making a sacrifice. We are the sacrifice."
"They made me think I was different enough to be unique, but my uniqueness only came from how different from them I really was." (this is a little paraphrased b/c it was long)
"We're gonna die for nothing."
"To hell with the truth as long as it rhymes"
"I love their lives."
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I'll talk about Dorian Gray after I've seen it.
After discussion, MICHELLE TERRY! who played Helena in All's Well, came to talk to us and a bit of Q & A. It was SO Cool! She was so cute and sweet and I liked her a lot. She was very bubbly, and very modest and humble about being an actress and her hair was so pretty. :) Not only did we get to talk to her about All's Well and the rehearsal process, we also managed to get around to questions about her career and personal stories and etc. I had a really nice time. Wish I coulda gotten a picture or autograph, but it's okay, I'll remember (I hope!) there's also something really cool she pointed out about Helena's soliloquies which I thought was interesting. Her first one is directly to the audience: "I have this dilemma, I'm in love with Bertram, who I can never have." Her second one says to the audience " I think I have a solution." Her third says "This has gone terribly wrong, I shall never speak to you again" and then she never addresses the audience again! Crazy. Good show. Good Michelle Terry. :)
After class, I realized that no one else had been productive yesterday like I had been and everyone had written their papers (due on Monday) overnight so no one wanted to go anywhere or do anything but sleep...so I talked to mom for like three hours. that was pretty much my afternoon.
We had an interesting time trying to get the Observe the Sons. It was at a theater in Zone 2 so we left kinda early to get over there. As we got there, there was already a train there about to leave so we all ran to jump on it, alas, Geoff did not make it. So I tried to yell the station we were going to get off at. But I guess he didn't understand me. So Alex, Cam, kyle and I decided to be really ninja and came up with a plan. At the next station, we would get off and spread out and each take a car of teh train so that we could spread out and find him. Next train, even with Alex yelling Geoff's name. No Geoff. So we got on and were sad our genius plan didnt work out and got to Swiss Cottage (the station we needed to get off at) and waited for like five trains and geoff never got off and it was like 6:45 ish so we had to go get dinner. Ended up going to another waitrose and I just got bread and hummus (which they spell Houmous here or something weird like that) got over to the theater. Geoff made it though! I was so sad we lost him. Anyway he said he thought I said West and there was a station called West Hampstead, which he thought he was being smart because the theater was called hampstead theater. haha. but it was a big fail. that was pretty exciting.
Show, which I wrote about above, and then came back and played Werewolf. I love that game. I also hate being the werewolf all by myself. it's hard.
This lovely morning. July 14, 2009
William Houston came to class today. Again, I said he's from Ulster in Ireland and is just a fabulous actor. He originally was like head macho man at Royal Shakespeare Company but played every single part he could play so is not doing some film stuff. Extremely talented. Amazing voice. It's like a good, theater, manly, shakespearean voice. Hard to explain. But a cool voice. Anyway he came to talk about his career for a little bit and then work with each of the groups on our Shakespeare scenes, which we're performing this Friday. Oh boy. Anyway, Geoffa nd I are always first because our scene is Midsummer Act 1 Scene 1 and we go in order. bleh. He ended up only talking about his career for maybe fifteen minutes and was like, Okay let's get started! I was like "ahhhh i just woke up!" anyway, everyone left, except for geoff and i and we set up, and did it one time through and he was pretty much like "ok good we got all the nervous jitters out. let's do it again" haha. For the next hour, Will turned our scene from crap to amazing. We changed EVERYTHING! the set, the blocking, the intonations of pretty much all of our lines, and tons and tons of body language. lots and lots. i think geoff and i really got to know each other, lol. anyway, it was SO COOL! He also taught me, personally, something really amazing about how to develop emotions that are really hard to get going with nothing to spark them. At the top of our scene, I immediately have to be upset, and I was having a hard time bringing that up right on the spot at the top of the scene. It's hard to explain, and kinda personal, but he really helped me figure out how to get there and for geoff to help too, especially cosnidering this scene is us together, it was awesome. I was completely speechless afterward I could barely think. it was just awesome. he also worked with us on how to take pauses and lots of body language that shows up on stage of what exactly is going through our minds, besides just showing it in our faces. it was awesome. I will say this, Shakespeare is ridiculously difficult. ridiculously. i hope I make it alive out of this on friday. One thing's for sure. Geoff and I need to work on it constantly before friday. just to keep it going. so amazing. I'll never forget. it was so cool.
Again, today is weird because we have staggered schedules of when all teh groups are working with Will, so it's hard to get people who can go places. we'll see though. and it might possibly be good to rest up before this next week which is jam packed every day with awesomeness!!! we're going to be so exhausted!!!
ie: Neal gets here tomorrow at 9:30 am!!!!! so excited!!!!!
anyway, I'm going to go see what everyone else is doing. You'll hear about Dorian Gray later on.
Much Love,
Becca
So you had your very first true acting lesson and it sounds like you learned sooo much!! Didn't think he would tear you down, but train you..sounds like it was fun!
ReplyDeleteSo the videos based on Dorian Gray...the first one I could tell they were very talented and really thought, had I been there I probably could have really gotten into it, but it was kinda weird. The 2nd well...just not the Swan Lake I like....I will give you lots of time to explain it to me when you get home.
Ummm you've always loved Civil War & American history, but sounds like you could really be interested in Irish history. My fav quote from Oberve the Sons..."They made me think I was different enough to be unique..."just sounds like our family to me.
Sooo let Neal get some rest now & then..have a blast, but you must still let us know what's going on.
xoxoxo, Your Mama