"Well, nothing to be done..." - Beckett

I actually decided to put off blogging last night for two reasons. First, a group of us played werewolf in the kitchen for an hour and a half (similar to Mafia, if you know how to play that...but better). Second, because for the first time since we've been here, all of us unanimously decided that, though The Observer was well executed, produced, and at some points, acted, it definitely wasn't our number 1, nor compared to the 6 show previously seen. So I took a night off.

Yesterday, July 6th 

Class.

We found out that Clum is taking us on two field trips this thursday and Friday. I know that Friday we're taking a backstage tour of the National Theatre, which is huge! It has like 4 theaters, a couple restaurants, a couple book stores, and live music playing before and after shows and during intermission. Really takes the experience of going to see a show to a new level. So that will be exciting to see. We're seeing pretty much all the shows there this summer, so I'm excited to see those sets up closer. Everyone's hoping to see the hologram screen for Time and the Conways. The Thursday trip, I can't recall the name, but I know it's some house outside of london that was held by aristocracy (Lords and such) and people who owned 1000s of acres of land, and this particular one was owned by the Royal Family, and Queen Elizabeth stayed there for some time to be safe while her sister on the throne killed Protestants.  Apparently the Earl of Salisbury still lives there or something. I'll let you know more when we go see it! We also found out that the man who played Henry Law  in When the Rain Stops Falling, who's named Jonathan Cullen, is going to be working with us after the break on contemporary scenes once we have completed our shakespearian ones. In addition, there is a possibility that Jonathan Cullen will be teaching a class on Shakespearian acting at DUKE in the Spring!!!! I'm all over that. Can't wait to meet him, but you'll hear more about that later as well.

That afternoon we went to Food Bazaar (the Gallon Boys' new favorite cheap food place), I got a coffee and we were off to find some sheet music store. It was a really cool little shop, had EVERYTHING, when it comes to popular stuff, and some other stuff (no Superman the musical or anything though haha). We also ran into two girls from Meredith College (???) which is apparently a women's college across the street from NC State. I didn't know those still existed. Ha. But they both had seen Guys and Dolls which we did three years ago with HnH so that was pretty cool. Small world. They're seeing shows...but not like we're seeing shows. heh.

The Observer.

The Observer at Cottesloe Theatre, one of the many theaters of the National Theatre, is making it's debut as a new play by Matt Charman here in London.  The play itself is simple: an imaginary (made-up) African country is holding democratic elections for the first time. Since it was previously a British Colony, Britain has an "observation team" there simply "observing" the entire election in order to report back that the election was indeed "democractic." Right from the start I was bothered by the fact that the country was never given a name and neither of the candidates as well (it's weird to hear "this country" "this country" again and again in a play).  That's the background. Action: a British woman on the observaiton team decides to literally get involved because she finds a way for the opposition to win (so they can eliminate a cruel, oppressive president that was beating people if they didn't vote for him). So she...crosses the line. and changes the entire fate of this nation in a single week. 

The show itself raises one question, we decided as a class:

Was it right for her to interfere when her job was simply to observe?

-we decided No.

Yet the play continued. and asked again, 'was it right?'

-We again replied, NO.

Once more it asked, "was it right?"

-NO! WE BLOODY GOT IT.

There was never any violence onstage. No riots broke out. Relationships weren't developed or even discussed for that matter. No one in the entire play died or was injured. Nothing happened. She changed the election. No ramifications were shown in the play. just that she realized (wayyyyy late. as I said in class today, "Helloooo. We're all here, where have you been?"). And that was it.

We all decided that there were numerous questions or issues that could have been brought up that simply weren't.

-How exactly can a side nation be positive this nation is ready for democracy?

-What should a play about current events be doing?

-What ramifications are brought upon a nation when you make a single impulsive decision, to do something perhaps good, but maybe not and definitely for yourself to simply see change.

"I just hope you've thought this through.  Whatever you have started here... I hope you know how it might end."

ALL that being said:

-The set was really cool. It had these weird african looking curtains that they could raise different parts up and down to certain levels to create these weird interesting looking rooms.

-Lighting was cool.

-Anna Chancellor was great. Sometimes I think she jumped to yelling too fast. But she was freaking out the whole show and her hair was always a mess and I thought she did a great job

-Some cameos were great as well

-Saunders was awesome, though confusing at first. I literally thought he was reading the script at one point for someone. turns out he was just supposed to be reading some monotone. whoops. great

-etc etc

We got back and played werewolf which was lovely.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Class.

We talked a little more about why Andrew Bovell arranged things in When the Rain Stops Falling the way he did. It was interesting to hear what some other kids thought. Definitely a cool show, wish you guys could have seen. 

Beckett stuff.

Beckett was actually Irish and moved to Paris in 1920s to be an assistant to James Joyce when he was writing "Finnegans Wake." He actually went through a phase where we was considering being a scholar of French literature or a novelist himself. ...He started novels in the 1930s, but gave up for awhile in WWII because he was very involved in the French resistance (which is a little ironic, simply because many of his plays include that idea that there is "nothing to be done" and that doing something useful actually causes nothing to work out anyway so there's not really a point). After the war he switched to playwriting, and Waiting For Godot happened 1948-9. 

Waiting for Godot really possesses many ideas and issues that Beckett was interested in at the time. He was fascinated, for exmaple, by monologues, finding out what's going on in people's minds (ie stream of consciousness, which is the way most of his monologues are structured, take Lucky's for ex). He also thought that people weren't speaking to communicate, but rather to fill silence, much like Vladimir and Estragon do throughout the entire play, even when they have nothing to say. At one point they converse:

Vladimir: To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.

Estragon: In the meantime let us try and converse calmly, since we are incapable of keeping silent.

Vladimir: You're right, we're inexhaustible.

Estragon: It's so we won't think. 

(Beckett)

With all of this and more in mind, he creates the characters of Vladimir and Estragon. Two silent movie, cartoon-like goofs, they are really just caricatures of what he thought people to be: routeless. They have no direction, so they CHOOSe a reason to live: to wait for Godot. (Prounounced God- Oh in England....). They're literally waiting for meaning to come from somewhere else so they're simply trapped. 

Beckett also liked the notion of time and language, and you could really see that in the show. "If you have no meaning to your present, then what does time mean???" (Clum).  For Gogo and Didi, they define time by when they meet every night. but remembering the past is tricky for them (particularly gogo), and time seems to go by so slow that every time something small happens Didi would say "well, that passed the time." There are also a lot of significant dramatic pauses which were interesting. In addition, in the second act, which is supposedly a day later, the tree actually has leaves on it, which makes one wonder how much time has actually passed.

Finally, I think it's cool that Beckett wrote the play in French because it was his second language, and by doing so, he could distance himself from the play and give is more objectivity. Pretty interesting. 

The theatre tonight was the Theatre Royal at Haymarket, the oldest theatre in the city of London that is still in use. It was beautiful, just like many of the old theaters here, very ornate and interesting, and of course since we were in the second (or was it third?) balcony, we had to enter into the theater from another outside door on the side of the main entrance (dang lower class). haha

-Oh yeah! the show was fabulous! It was a little hard because we were so high up that I think everyone was getting a little dizzy/sleepy cuz it was steep down there. But the set was much cooler than I thought it was going to be. The director took on this idea of sort of an old run down city brick building, it was SO detailed from the bricks to the broken boards of the stage, to the balconies that were added on to look like a run-down continuation of the theater, and made Mr. McKellen and Mr. Stewart very failed vaudeville-esque. but it worked very well. i never pictured Pozzo to be so colorful but he was a lot of fun and Lucky was just what I imagined him to be...nothing really. haha.  Awesome. Much better live. Funnier. Livelier, too, which i dunno if that's ironic or not. But it was very funnier. and interesting and got the point across. 

Best part of the night: Ian McKellen who played Estragon and Patrick Stewart who played Vladimir came out of the back stage door, and we were standing right there.  Clum told us that we probably could and explained how to find the back door and we ran around the back and waited a little less than half an hour for them to come out. We knew we were in the right place because a driver in a nice mercedes was obviously waiting to pick them up.  Not only did they come out and sign our programs, but we got to talk to them for a minute or so, and we got the rest of the cast to sign as well!!!! (Simon Callow as Pozzo [who was hilarious] and Ronald Pickup as Lucky)  SO COOL!!! anyway convos;

Ian McKellen gets to me

"You were fabulous. just fabulous."

"well thank you where are you from?"

"Umm... florida!"

"well thats good!"

sign. :)

Patrick Stewart.

"It was so wonderful. and you were amazing. it was so interesting to see it actually done on stage after reading it, it's so much better. you were wonderful."

"why thank you. You are so sweet."

:) :) :) yayyy!!! :)

sorry it's sideways, hopefully you can still see it :) The other two actors are on the inside. :)

gooood, no GREAT, night!

oh and this afternoon, Geoff and I worked on our Shakespeare scene, did some preliminary blocking, etc. so that was cool. then Pint Mama and the Gallon Boys (ie kyle, alex, ted, geoff, cameron, and myself) went to the National Gallery and looked at tons of art. Went to Pizza Hut for dinner which is a nice restaurant over here (I think they're trying to convert the American ones to more like the ones over here), but it was terrible. Terrible service. and They forgot kyle's pizza; he didnt get it until 7:27 pm! (show started at 7:30...bad). It was really bad. I was mad. 

Tomorrow Rus Macdonald (don't quote me on spelling), is coming to class to talk to us about All's Well That Ends Well (he's one of the leads in it), because we're seeing it on Friday so that should be awesome. Tomorrow Night is Madame Butterfly, and this is apparently the best revival of all time for this show (and yes, Dad, there are subtitles! hahaha), so it should be great. I suppose great things can happen when you're at the National and you're completely subsidized by taxpayers that you have a unlimited budget. phooee

That's all for tonight. 

So sleepy, good day!

I'll end with one of my mother's favorite places...which I found next to Harrod's the other day. hehe

With Love,

Becca