(The rosetta stone at the british museum! much bigger than i thought)
(Us next to the Quidditch Pitch filmed in Christ Church College of Oxford: Geoff, me, KEVIN [our awesome tour guide!], Eugenie, Kristina, and John)
(Inside the Eagle and Child Pub at Oxford yummy fish and chips!)
(Part of Kevin's college, Trinity College at Oxford! SO pretty!)
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Yesterday, July 10, 2009. We all had to get up early and be at the National Theatre at 10:25. Keep in mind, it takes like an hour to get over there with all the traveling junk. Anyway, it was early! haha.
The National Theatre tour was cool for a couple reasons, but not because it's pretty or old or anything, it's really relatively new actually. It was cool because it showed me that West End, high class, AHmazing, shows, are done in theaters, that are just like mine. The doors were beat up from time, there were bulletin boards everywhere about so-and-so's birthday bash somewhere, who's drinking what food to what event, schedules, offices, a shop just like OCT's (But on a much more HUGE scale), etc. So that made me happy, backstage isn't all sparkly and wonderfuly because you're performing in West End, it's just...theater.
Number 2, we got to see some really neat stuff and find out some cool backstage secrets about some of the plays we had seen / are going to see. it was cool.
So here's what I learned.
-the National Theater was built to be a very welcoming community-oriented place. They wanted higher class and theater-going people to feel happy, as well as people who maybe aren't as interested in theater be able to come and enjoy themselves. Hence the things I've mentioned, three theaters, two restaurants, tons of bars, one coffee shop, a huge bookshop, free live entertainment eveyr night, outside and inside the lobby, a grassy area to hang out, and more.
-There are three theaters, the Lyttleton, Cottesloe, and the Olivier (I have seen a show in each theater so far...I know of at least one more that we're seeing in the Lyttleton.) Since they were on a repertoire system, there are generally at least 2 to 3 shows going on in each theater at a time. so they do 4-5 shows of one play, and then 4-5 shows of another play. So, you gotta be able to find at least one play you'd go see! ex: time and the Conways and Phedre in Lyttleton.
-1/3 of the budget for the National Theater comes from the arts council of the government....thank you very much!
-They first opened this theater in 1976, but originally they started as a National Theater Company of Actors who were at the Old Vic Theater. Their first director was Olivier, and he got the largest theater named after him!
-Though the Natl Theatre is relatively knew. England's been trying to have a national theater forever. the First attempt was in 1848.
-they have around 1000 employees!!!!!
-the Lyttleton theater is the medium sized one, and it's the most conventional of theaters. there are 890 seats.
-the National Theatre was voted Most Comfortable Seats in Britain ...lol!
-SECRETS: Time and the Conways was done in the Lyttleton. Kay's papers that fly out of her hands are attached by a complicated series of wires that let them slide to the floor but stay together. Carol's scarf that suddenly becomes perfectly hard and flat is done quickly and unnoticably: she finds the scarf offstage and is handed the plastic one at the same time as we are watching Kay's papers fall to the ground. DANG. missed that. The 7 Mirrors of Kay getting skinnier as they go upstage making them appear smaller like going in a long hallway with lots of mirrors. Optical illusion!! The projections done at the end aren't really a hologram but something called a Victoria Pepperbox (don't quote me on that). it's a slanted, really thing piece of plastic that is held at exactly the right tension and then images are projected onto it that make it look like it's part of them. super cool
-The sets in the Lyttleton theater are on platforms with wheels, so when they need to switch to the other show in 5 hours, they simply lift up the stage, wheel it away into one room, wheel the other in from a side room, and lower the stage so the floor is even. sweet.
-the shop and backstage area connects all the theaters together
-a horse from War Horse was backstage! ALICE!, who is Joey's mom, was actually cut from the show because originally when the show was put together from teh children's book, it was four hours long. She was also cut because she appeared in the scene where Joey was a foal and they thought it would take away from teh baby puppet if they gave away what the big puppets looked like so early. smart move.
-The War Horse rehearsal period was 3 months long. It definitely showed up in the work though haha. They are also always constantly making new horses, because the puppets wear out so easily. there was a lady working on another one while we were there.
-they have 2 rehearsal rooms, 1 of which is the size of the Olivier stage and the other the size of the Lyttleton, smart move. They don't actually move onto the stage until three days before the show! I can't even imagine not working with the stage until then.
-No Open auditions at the National Theatre (Dang it). You must be invited to come audition. they have to have your CV and headshot on file and had to have obviously seen you do something amazing somehwere else. You can also invite (Sometimes) auditioners to "come see you in this role at this place and time" etc.. and of course auditioners are always investigating shows to see.
-they have THREE floors of dressing rooms!!! and there is a courtyard in the middle fo them so every room can get some light and air, without being seen by people on teh street. too cool.
-The Olivier is actually based on a Greek Amphitheater, but it's on the inside. I liked it a lot. They don't use mics for straight plays. there are 1160 seats in teh Olivier, but it doesn't feel 2x bigger than the lyttleton at all.
-Interesting fact about the Olivier: it was designed so that the angle of seats is 118 degrees. coincidence? no, the human peripheral vision angle is 118 degrees. you can see everyone sitting in the theater (except hte people behind you of course) and the entire stage. no view restrictions in that theater!!!!
-The Queen has only come two times to the National. it's actually named the Royal National Theatre, but Royal has been dropped to make everyone feel more welcomed. durr
-The Olivier has tons of revolves below the stage, the stage and turn, parts can turn, raise and lower, it's crazy., but apparently they were so flaky they actually weren't used in a show until 1985 (opened in 1976), you do the math.
lots of fun, cute tour guide girl too.
then we sat outside on this big rock thing outside the National and Clum talked to us a little bit about All's Well again.
-Michelle Terry (the lead: Helena!) is coming to talk to us about All's Well on Monday and her career!
-we just discussed a little bit about how Helena's constancy and devotion is being tested through the entire show. and how obvious her superiority to Bertram is, despite the fact that she is lower in class; we can still see what an extraordinary woman she is.
-then we just atlked about marriage, and how it's a joining of different characteristics, females are devote and stable (in relation that is) and men want to run off to war (haha), and you can only get both through marriage. and since marriage at the time could be assigned, you have to hope that those people are responsible enough to make it a loving union., which Bertram is too blind to see because of class
after "class" the gallon boys and i went to this market thing that was giving out free samples of AMAZING food. i felt bad, but it was so good, and then we didnt buy anything. except i bought two breadsticks for a pound :) then we went back to waitrose because the boys wanted cheap lunch from there and then walked to the British Museum eating lunch. British Museum.....actually not my thing. there's tons of stuff on ancient history, ancient everything, (that may be right up your alley, boyfriend, [ancient greece and junk] but no me gusta)....lots of pots where the explanations are like "this perhaps was a pot for food" this "perhaps" was a utensil. etc etc etc, i dont think they have any idea what any of that junk was used for. maybe that pot was a toilet. coolest parts: the rosetta stone and the broken parts of the parthenon, that the parthenon wants back, but Britain won't let them have them. interesting...some guy just scraped them off the side of it!!!
showwww: All's Well at the Olivier.
The director, Marianne elliott (who also directed War Horse), took on a huge task of All's Well. I dont know how anyone tackles shakespeare in the first palce, but trying to do it in a modern sense that a modern contemporary audience can realte to has got to be extremely difficult. SO she, rather skillfully and mega-creatively, came up with the idea of doing the entire show in sort of a fairty-esque, dream-like quality, so you sorta of show the issues of "is this really true love??" etc. it's not really real. anyway, i liked it a lot. i think a lot of us questioned costume choices (they seemed to jump time periods), but i really liked a couple twists:
-When Helena runs off to help the King, she wears a red-hooded cape (little red riding.....)
-When she gets married she puts on sparkling silver shoes (the original wizard of....)
-She takes them off and leaves the shoes onstage at the end of act 1, before she runs away out of sadness (cinderell....)
-they had these really dream-like sections where everything moved in slow motion that were cool
-the rings were glow in the dark (anyone remember All's Well? the rings...are a big deal).
-They also did segments where you could see their silhouettes in a doorway and they sorta moved like wind-up music-box dolls, smoothly and then abruptly and stiffly, freezing and unfreezing, etc
-I LOVE how the actors around here can really take Shakespeare's words and show EXACTLY what they're tlaking about. They show hidden meanings, they crack sexual innuendos, they display the irony; everything, is just awesome, I LOVE how they can do that!
Then we came back and Geoff and I desperately started trying to get train tickets to Oxford...fail. The prices went up because they werent advanced anymore, and then the stupid internet wasn't even letting us. finally, Eugenie comes in my room and is like, well I'm taking a bus with my friend's roommate from Oxford, it takes a little longer, but it cheaper if you want to come with us!
SOOOO we got up super early today, went and met Kevin and jumped on a bus to Oxford. You know theyhave buses to Oxford every ten minutes, that seems a little excessive. anyway, took 1 hour and a half and I turned on Guster on my ipod, maybe listened to Come Downstairs... and then fell asleep for the rest of the time.
Kevin...is from malaysia and is attending Oxford. He's flatmate is Eugenie's friend from home who also goes to Oxford, but he's at home now. Kevin is on holiday too but decided to stay in London and get a job for teh summer with an investment bank company. he's doing economics and engineering. The coolest part about going around with Kevin, is that he actually goes to school at Oxford. It's not like we took some tour with 60 other people, found out some history but really nothing about what the college or student life is like. It was so cool to talk to him. and we compared America and england school systems pretty much all day. it was a lot of fun and really cool.
we got there and met up with Kristina, Rachel, and John who had taken the train and were off! He showed us one of the main libraries, Bodleian library, the museum (that was acutally closed today for renovation), the Bridge of Sighs (much smaller than I envisioned it) and pointed out various stuff on the street as we went. then we actually got to go inside his college because he has his student id card!
-there are 38 colleges at Oxford, except theyre not like the "colleges" within a university in the US. within every college, you can study whatever you want (provided that that college has that), it's not like you're in Trinity COllege of arts and sciences (you study..arts or sciences) or Pratt (you study engineering), every college has whatever you want to study. SO for exmple, his college, called Trinity College (sweet coincidence), there are actually only 4 engineers in his entire grade in the college. there are about 400 kids in his college, but the colleges vary in size. the richer they are, the more land they have (richest is St. Paul's College and 2nd is Christ Church college).
-They have three meals a day they can go to, breakfast and lunch are self serve, dinner, they have waiters serve you. Friday nights is formal, but formal they have to wear black suits, white shirt, white bowtie, and their gowns (by gown, think Harry Potter school cloaks, JK Rowling didnt make this junk up!) "Scouts" (aka maids) empty your garbage and clean your communal bathroom every day. your communal bathroom is for boys and girls.
-They have to wear their entire formal wear to their Exams (he showed us the building where they take their exams). In addition to their formal wear they have to wear their gowns and CARRY a mortarboard, but not wear it. what they do with it during their exam, i have no idea, but i can hardly imagine taking exams with all those layers of clothes on!
-they dont get gpas or letter grades, but overall with their examinations, they get averaged exam scores As average is called 1st, second highest is Two-One (aka 2nd upper), and 2nd and so on. 3rd is second to last and then they have like "I passed."
-They do classes really weird. I still dont get it. but it's something like lecture 2-3 times a week, but it's caleld tutorials and one-on-one with your professor, i mean there are only four engineers in his grade. something weird like that.
-Kevin's college was very pretty. they were all built at differnet times and have differnet styles and whatnot. His college is most famous for its lawns, which are gorgeous. they are also one of the fortunate colleges that allows the students to actually walk, lay and hang out on the lawns
-they have rival colleges within Oxford. not really for sports. but more for pranks and wahtnot. we heard stories of painting cows pink, and throwing turtles over balconies (so sad!)
-Christ Church is the 2nd richest college, and also very famous for it's ....church! It's also where a lot of Harry Potter junk is filmed, including the Great Hall (the dining room for Hogwarts [the school]), and the Quidditch Pitch (the wizard sport field). it was so cool to see those spots, but looks nothinglike it does in the movies haha
-we went to lunch at a pub called the "Eagle and Child." this pub, first of all, was just cool because it was dark and pub-like. :) 2nd, CS lewis and JRR Tolkien used to come to the backroom of that pub all the time and drink. I also got to have fish and chips with vinegar, salt and ketchup so I was very happy! :D
-we also went to this famous cookie store started at Oxford called Ben's Cookies and I almost died. SO GOOD. cookie with chocolate batter with melted chocolate on the inside with white chocolate and milk chocolate chips
-we walked around tons more and talked and then we sat in this alley place that was cool, one of Kevin's favorite hidden spots and just talked about school and whatnot and I tried to get him to do an American accent which was funny and we just talked. He had as many questions for us as we did for him
SO FUN. we got back and were so exhausted but ending up sitting in the hallway of our flat with Cameron and Taty, who both didnt go and told really sad stories. Eugenie has gone through some really hard stuff in the past like 3 months, it was so sad to hear about i teared up. I dont really wanna talk about it on the internet, but i wont forget. Made me feel very blessed while at the same time terrified of losing people I care about. :( then we danced to single ladies and then went our separate ways. heh.
Tomorrow's list
-Geoff and I will perfect our scene
-I have to finish my papers.
-Waitrose for food for the next couple weeks.
-LAUNDRY. bleh
-musical theater junk
-etc.
BLEH. so sleepy.
night
much love,
bec
The first dwellings at the town of Oxford were probably built during the Roman occupation. Later there was a nunnery there. In the 12th century a monatery was built along with monastic schools. All of the scholars and teachers were required to wear a LONG BLACK GOWN, and this is probably the origin of the tradition of wearing a long gown at college and university commencements and ceremonies that we have today.
ReplyDeleteIn the 13th century there was a lot of animosity between the students and the townspeople ("town versus gown"), and some of the scholars left and founded Cambridge. Residence halls were built to protect those who remained, and this is where monastic learning carried on.
However, at about this time the first university colleges appeared. These were built with money left to the university by wealthy churchmen who died without heirs. They were essentially secular and not for monastic teaching. They were pretty nice for that time compared to the residence halls, because of the large sums of money that were bequeathed for their creation. (Perhaps this is the origin of the modern tradition of residence halls being dumps compared to the lavish teaching and classroom buildings??)
In the 16th century, Henry VIII founded ChristChurch, and provided protection for it. This was at the time of the reformation, and finally the university began accepting some students from the middle class (provided they had enough money), instead of only allowing students from the upper class.
Ah, Bec, another excursion I would have liked to have been a part of . . .
Keep it coming.
XOXOXO, Daddy
Bring me home/mail me one of those cookies!!!
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