Duke In London - Summer 2009

A Title is Too Conclusive.

2010-06-16T21:25:00.001-07:00

A good friend of mine said the other day,

"You don't have to have a conclusion, Bec. Conclusions are the hard part."

And that hit me as the best and only way I could ever end this London Blog. Is it even over? I think about London on a constant basis, whether it's a memory from last summer, a daydream about future plans, a current event or news report, a historical remembrance, it doesn't really matter; I think about it a ton.

Because as corny as it sounds, London is a part of who I am now. What I did there has helped me grow so much as well as figure out some stuff about myself. I developed friendships that have grown into relationships so dear to me that it's hard to imagine my life without them. I am constantly reading everything I can about schools in London, theater in London, books taking place in England, and taking classes about it.

So I never ended this blog. This adventure. I just could never find a way to truly sum up everything, like "Here's what I'm going to take away from this summer." and then bam, new chapter: Back to Duke. I never could, I wanted to keep it all. I wanted to relive it in my mind whenever I could, and this blog has more than helped me do that along the way, from jotting down memories, to thinking out loud to friends and family who supported and loved me while I was there.

Thus, I have decided that I won't finish this blog. Although this is a pretty conclusive post, I have nothing to say except it was one of the best life decisions I have ever made and I wouldn't be who I am today had I not gone.

Now we're close to the date of the next group of Duke in Londoners heading off to my favorite city, and it's weird thinking about how it was literally a year ago that 13 others and myself made our way across the Atlantic. I hope the next group becomes as inspired, as connected, as close, as supportive, as open with each other as we were. We were all so different from one another, that it really brought us all together. It was a powerful summer, and I hope they can feel that, too.

But, it is my one small effort to not summarize the summer, or take away specific things that i learned while there... I just want it to keep going.

My life consists of segments of incredible experiences. I suppose most people's lives do as well, but I guess it's the organizational side of me that compartmentalizes everything in my life. So i generally create segments of time, depending on where I was, what I was doing, and who was heavily present in my life (cough). I think as I get older, a lot of that will sort of melt into "childhood" or some generic term that I'll look back on and wish I could relive every moment of, just like I'm sitting here now wondering where I'm going, who will be there with me, and what my kids will look like.

What I do know is that I love it all. I have been blessed so much in life in so many different ways, it's hard to explain how grateful I am, or in awe, I suppose.

SO! London will keep going. in me. forever. at least that's my goal. and different segments of time will do the same thing, have an impact on me and then continue on with me as I go.

One such segment is, of course, this fall. This fall will be interesting because I'll be in Florence, Italy. I don't know any Italian at this point and just started a dating relationship (stated by the girl who has always demanded, "I don't believe in long distance relationships."). But then again, this is also the girl who does everything passionately and with her all... and who am I to stop her?

Blog will be up and running soon, and hopefully it'll be called Bec in Florence, a similar, and yet extremely catchy ;-) "sequel" title. and I guess I have the same goals for that one as my Duke in London one. Get down as much as I can: be it what I'm learning, a memory, or a thought I've never had before.

And of course, never let that conclude eith

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

2009-08-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

just shows update for now.

Phedre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-this play...is one gigantic tirade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

billy elliot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-but he does hooray!

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

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

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

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

Shall We Dance

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

the show:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

some quotes:

"she doesn't live here."

"but she molts here."

"there's so much i regret."

"join the club."

"divorce time."

"you think sex was the problem."

"no, i think you were the problem."

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

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

"I miss the certainty of belief."

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

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

"I slip."

"I catch you."

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

all for now.

much love,

becca

but there's no place like....

Take me to Heaven!! :D

2009-08-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

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

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

Sunday august 2

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

Monday, august 3

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

Nap.

Science museum with Cameron. fun.

1 hr shopping at Oxford Circus! :)

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

talked to mom on ichat

tuesday, august 4

class, discussion about streetcar and black album and billy elliot

nutella and peanut butter sandwich

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

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

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

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

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

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

sorry so short, night!

much love

becca

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

2009-08-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

Thursday, july 30, 2009

A Streetcar Named Desire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some more attraction stuff:

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

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

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

A few other quirky tid-bits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I loved it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, July 31, 2009.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) the acting. shiverrrr...

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

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

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

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

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

peace!

much love

becca

There's magic in thy majesty

2009-07-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Some quirky things on display in the house I liked:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4:48 Psychosis.

oh boy.

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

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

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

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

some quotes:

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

"the truth no one utters."

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

"I miss a woman who was never born."

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

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

"an this is the rhythm of madness."

"look away from me."

"it'll never pass."

"Beautiful pain that says I exist."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Watch me vanish."

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

The Cherry Orchard tomorrow! yay! :)

Night!

Much Love,

Becca

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

Because luck comes from within.

2009-07-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-07-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-07-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

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.

--------

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."

2009-07-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

2009-07-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

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

Mad as a box of frogs! - Michelle Terry (Helena in All's Well)

2009-07-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I haven't written. I'm sorry! Hopefully this blog will make up for things though.

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."

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

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

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie. (All's Well)

2009-07-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

(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!)

------

I'm going to attempt to get through this, I haven't written in a couple days, but I'm exhausted from everything we've been up to lately, so I'll just do the best I can and then PEACE! Thus, this will be short

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

Sero sed serio.

2009-07-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Hatfield House, a 223 room mansion, seems to not be on the top of anyone's list to go-see when you think of London. Just a twenty-minute train from King's Cross and you're there: a HUGE piece of architecture, surrounded by tons a land. It's not the most important building in the world, but it did have a lot of power, and some interesting things in it. I'll tell you my favorites, anyway. Our tour guide was such a nice lady and she really liked us for some reason, and we just had a great time.

Today, was probably the chilliest day here so far, and always a day that I chose to wear shorts. Bad idea. By the time we were leaving the tips of my fingers were completely white and i had purple fingernails. I looked weird. When we got back to bed I immediately got in my bed because I was still so cold. brr

The Earl of Salisbury actually still lives in one of the wings of the house with his wife today. We saw a picture of the heir to the house, born in 1970. I can't decide how much of a burden it would be to inherit such a house, because you'd instantly become in charge with its upkeeping and restoration, as well as tours and staff and whatnot. Anyway, it's such a great honor, that I don't think he should complain. His family traces all the way back 14 generations to Robert Cecil and beyond. So interesting how things get passed down.

Anyway, here's some cool quirky stuff I learned. People made fun of me because I took notes during the tour, but I didn't want to forget anything!:

-The actualy original Hatfield House is off to the side of the main one and is only 1/4 of the original building. After Henry VIII having it for awhile, Queen Elizabeth chilling there while her sister Mary killed Protestants[and actually found out at the hatfield house that she would be queen because her sister had died], and then James VI got it, eventually a guy named Robert Cecil got it. in 1607 (i think). ANyway, HE knocked down 3/4 of the hosue to build the NEW and improved Hatfield House (the one you see in the above picture.) Here's a pic of the remaining 1/4 of the original.

The new house (pictured at top) only took four years to build! (1608-1612). As our tour guide said "It took four years to build and has been falling down ever since" haha

-It's elizabethan architecture (E shaped without the center branch)

-60 servants were there at a time.

-Every time some one new came to own the house, things changed. Things were painted over, things were gilded, things were taken and thrown out and brought back and etc. Funny thing, the first earl to get it changed a ton of stuff , but then was never able to live in it.

-"sero sed serio" - title of this blog is the family motto in latin "late but in earnest" something about being perhaps a bit to late to be acceptable but always honest and nice. or something

-When Queen Elizabeth got painted, things were done to add to her likeness (no duh). One painting in the front room, has her in a dress covered in eyeballs and ears at age 67. She looks like she's 20 (hahah), she's holding rainbow without color. Rainbows mean peace, and it said "no rainbow without the sun" (ie Elizabeth is the sun). eyes and ears meant that she was all seeing and all knowing. There was a serpent holding a a heart and something else that represented wisdom and prudence. and there was stuff about her chastity, chivalry, etc etc etc.

Funny thing about her, she actually wouldn't name an heir until her deathbed, she wanted to always be queen.

-The grand staircase was beautiful. It was of english oak based on Italian great staircases. The railing posts originally were painted and the cherubs were gilded but now they just look like wood. they were really cool and covered in symbology.

-There were quite a few hidden doors. :)

-THe Drawing Room today has 60 paintings, including another one of Elizabeth covered in symbols of her awesomeness: ie purity, peace (olive brance), sword (justice). We also talked at this point about how they would keep their mouths closed for paintings because their teeth were so bad they were almost black. Again her skin was lovely, and she had a wig on. heh.

-the drawing room was considered the heart of the house, even though it was on the side and overlooked the east gardens, and the earl of salisbury still chills in there with his wife. there were reading magazines on the coffee table next to the fireplace.

-there used to be a door in the drawing room to the bedroom because it used to be like a gathering parlor or something.

-The two big chambers on either side of the house were actually designed for like one to be the lady's side (queen) and the other side for the male (king).

-in 1835 the west wing burnt down with the wife of James Cecil (1st marquess of salisbury). she had locked the bedroom door, she was 85 years old and was wellknown for being full of silly tricks, and for being mischievous etc. funny. After the fire they actually found some of the remains of her jewelry, only to find out they were fakes because she had been selling her real jewelry to pay off gambling debts (teehee). No one knows how the fire started, but lighting was with candles soooo....... ANyway, apparently Charles Dickens was a reporter at the time and actually wrote about the fire and it's even mentioned in Oliver twist. :)

-The long gallery (long hallway in the middle), was for recreation and exercise and connecte dthe 2 aparments. in 1629 a billiard table was brought in. It doesnt really look like an exercise room.

-the winter dining room was originally a withdrawing room into the bedchamber but was converted in the 18th century (sometime). there are huge tapestries on the walls representing the four seasons, which were put in in sometime in the 19th century

-the library, from here you can see the old house, where elizabeth was brough when she was 3 months old, as well as the west gardens. In the middle is a Venetian mosaic of Robert Cecil. there are 10,000 books dating back to Cecil in there, but the important documents are kept somewhere else under moisture junk control

-apparently the 14 year old Elizabeth was accused of having an affair with Thomas Seymour (who was married to Katherine Parr!). Supposedly he tickled her and other inappropriate behavior (oooo). In the library in a glass case was a letter from Elizabeth that refutes the behavior, affair, and being pregnant in beautiful handwriting. there was also a second document from 15 years later in her hurried scribble, which looked a lot more like my handwriting today (hah)

-There was a gentleman's reading chair in there. Like sitting in a chair backwards, straddling it and then theres a tilted tray attached to the back for a book. Ladies, of course, were not permitted to use this chair.

-Other cool documents in glass cases in there: elizabeth writing an instruction in code to Scotland so the rebels wouldnt understand (they have decoded it today of course). A document written in latin by the 9 year old Edward (which looked like an adult's handwriting SO WEIRD). AND MY PERSONAL FAVORITE (pay attention momma): the tiny portrait that was given to Henry VIII of Anne of Cleves, which showed a likeness to her (she looked like all the other flat faced, no shadowed pictures from the time haha, pretty). it was tiny and circular and I was so excited to see it, that's the picture he got! before he married her! Then she was brought there, he thought she was ugly, they remained married for 6 months unconsummated and next to the tiny picture was Henry VIII's letter divorcing her, putting the marriage aside, and making sure she would lose everything, in addition to losing her title as Queen. hehehe.

-Queen Elizabeth wore gloves that had super long skinny fingers that were stuffed in teh tips. They were creepy looking

-there was a painting of two men, but one hated the other and had it painted over in 1840, and people cleaned it and found him, haha, I have the names all mixed up but it was funny to look at.

-There was a gift of a temple from teh Chinese Emperer to George III (those bloody americans). It was huge and carved out of ivory and they made t men carry it 21 miles to the Hatfield House. luckily they received a coach for the journey home

-They had their own private chapel which had pretty stained glass windows (which I learnd how to make at the Victoria and Albert Museum yesterday!) of bible stories. The chapel was almost lost in the fire that i mentioned earlier but remained. something about water tanks above acutally melted in teh fire and helped the situation a bit. The stained glass was actually taken down out of the windows during the civil war and put up in post restoration.

-Underneath the long gallery (downstairs) was originally open air, but they enclosed it in the 1830s; you can still see the front door along the wall of the downstairs gallery.

-The only earl they don't talk about and there's nothing about in the house is the 6th earl who was called "the wicked earl" because he abandoned his good wife, daughters and one son for his mistress, had lots of illegitimate children and eventually became a coachman. wicked bad earl.

Anyway, we learned tons, but those were my favorite parts. So quirky. I love how every single room in these buildings was built with a meaning. The walls are carved full of symbols and meanings, and family emblems, and latin, and history, and hints at what the people were like. it's SO COOL!

We got back, I got a nasty burrito on the corner. Took a short nap, worked a little more on what neal and I are gonna do the week he's here (5 days!), and then we were off again.

The theater tonight, the Young Vic theater, was in a different area than normal and the show had unreserved seating so we decided to try and get there early. we did and turns out the theater is like attached to a pub so we hung out for awhile, and I had a croissant. mmm. We got in the theater, and it was extremely cool. The front floor was actually tables and chairs, and then there were seats were behind that. We sat in the front row of the seats because it was a little higher up. Probably best seats we've had so far. So HA, being early was a good idea. The venue was definitely cool.

The play.

Been So Long.

Clum couldn't come tonight, which was sad because he hadn't seen the show yet. He had only seen it in previews and he said it needed "tightening up." I wasn't sure what he was going to mean. Truthfully, I think I thought dancing.. in a hip-hop musical...no dancing. So, that was a let down (for me anyway). but after watching the show, maybe they have tightened it up a lot more, but truthfully it's really hard to tighten a show...that isn't good.

Don't get me wrong, it was hilarious. After listening to everyone talk about the show the entire way home as well as say it was their new favorite, yeah I get it, it was really funny. and the music, oh the music, was FABulous. the band was right onstage and very cool, and the backup singers were soulful, powerful, and fun. but the show...oh the show..

I'm trying to make sure it's not just because I have seen a TON of fabulous shows in teh past week and a half. i don't want to become a harsh theater critic (cough cough, thinking of a few), and say that everything I see just sucks. You are supposed to focus on the good things in a show, not the small details that maybe aren't the best thing ever, but really aren't that big of a deal. BUT, it's SO hard, especially when we're not talking about small details and you suddenly realized you've missed the bus that lead you straight to: "That show was better than 'A Little Night Music!!'" What the heck??????????????

-The story was shallow. mmno, sea level. ground 0. nothing happen, there was no change in teh character's personalities, ways of life, no revelations, no breaking point, nothing. No one bettered themselves or made a change even though lines like "people change, sometimes for the better" (how original) showed up in a song.

-exs: girl decides to return to jerk who just sleeps around. other girl doesnt get what she wants. guy suddenly doesnt want to kill the guy he intended to kill. other guy slightly develops a love for original girl but does nothing, says nothing, and continues to do nothing.

-some of the actors struggled big time with showing any sort of serious emotion.

-one of the actors ...didnt act.

-the lyrics. killed me. I really really really really tried to get past them the entire show, but every time another song started, I just had to roll my eyes when i heard lyrics like "It's been too long. since I said goodbye. when I think of her,...I start to cry." "It's so hard to be alone. no no no no no simone." "truth hurts more than you will ever know" (wait, hasn't someone already said that?) "i want a fella. i want a fella. make a girl scream and yell-a"

................okay...good rhymes.

...I could go on. but I don't really need to.

here's a couple quotes, I could stand. that, although unoriginal, were nice:

"It's been too long since I last saw her face."

"You and I are gonna set the sky alight."

"It's funny you could feel so lonely and never know."

"He kissed my entire history."

"She smiles this smile, and I melted to the floor."

"You know I'm lost here, but I'm here for you to find."

(okay, I'm sorry, I felt lame just typing those...)

Yes, it was ridiculously funny. really. Gil was my favorite. he was crazy and had great comedic facial expressions and was a lot of fun. simone's cousin was funny sometimes too.

It just wasn't my style. "not to my taste" as a i said at first to neal. but truthfully, i dont think it has to do with taste. It's hard for me to say that Theater is simply for entertainment. I truly believe that all theater tells a story, develops really strong, believable people, raises questions, presents ideas, does something, at least....but this did nothing for me. True, here I may be used to really well-developed characters with a long history/life (ie, real human beings), and watching what they're going through presents new ideas, etc. and they sing songs that have witty lyrics that carry the story or plot further and the comedy is more ironic rather than blatant and stupid/perverted humor. (oo, becca, too harsh). Anyway, that's what I look for in theater. that has nothing to do with taste really. maybe all that is just what I value in theater. the art of the theater. the wonder of theater. the true meaning of theater. and i think i just missed all of that a lot tonight. because simply...

...All that's what I love. All that is why I do this.

I'm sorry. I have to write about it somewhere.

All's Well That Ends Well tomorrow night at the National. Backstage tour of the entire theatre tomorrow morning!

With love,

Rebecca

"So much sea and so much sky" - Puccini

2009-07-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

"They may-poled her into her wedding obi!" - Rachel (just for the record, haha)

Today, was an overall excellent day, as usual here in London. :)

I must correct myself about something. Russ McDonald, who taught part of our class today, isn't an actor, but rather a professor at the University of London, as well as a Shakespeare scholar. In addition, he was a student of Professor Clum's during Clum's 2nd or 3rd year at Duke so that was pretty cool. His son also did the very program we're doing about five years ago. So lots of connections.

Russ McDonald came today because he's really interested in Shakespeare from a literary point of view. So he told us that Clum can tell us all about directorial choices, and theatrical aspects of the shows we're seeing, but that he wanted to talk to us about All's Well That Ends Well (which we're seeing Friday), from a more literary point of view. It wasn't really an English-y lesson, but more like further meanings about this. I enjoyed it; it did seem like we were all, as a group, a little slow-moving this morning (You'd really be amazing at how trekking all around London all day and seeing a show every night until 11 pm will actually make you exhausted for a 10:45 am class every day).

Anyway, here's what we learned from him today:

-All's Well that End's Well (From here on, "All's Well") is really a pivot play for Shakespeare because it came at a time when Shakespeare was transitioning from some of his hardcore comedies (A Midsum, As You Like it, etc), which were from the first decade, around 1590-1600 to the second decade (1601-1611 ish) which had more dark comedies, his tragic plays, and what are today called his romances (Winter's Tale and the Tempest). All's Well came at about 1602, along with Troilus and Cressida. For this reason, they had some weird underlying ideas. But seem like comedies and end happily with marriages. however, one is caused (for some reason or another) to question the validity of such happiness in the endings, what is sometimes called "Dark Comedy."

-All's Well is actually adapted from an Italian story of Julietta of Narbonne. It was translated to English in about 1577, and it was adapted from that. Julietta is like the Helena character. She's not of the proper class, and when the male character says he won't marry her for that reason, no one gets upset because it makes perfectly good sense he wouldn't want to marry lower. Eventually her loyalty wins him over and everything ends happy. All's Well, on the other hand, has a situation where all the older adults what him to marry her and he still won't. Shakespeare then complicates teh story, adding in teh COuntess, Lafeu, Parolles, etc. These characters aren't necessarily required but they ad a lot of thematic weight.

-This comedy is slightly different, because in many of his others, the young people want to get married and the old people don't want them to / won't let them. Something happens and they get to get married, the end. In this case, The old people are FOR the marriage, Bertram is just a jerk. Which in the end makes you question how happily this marriage will be after all? This may also test the adequacy of this truly being a normal, comedic play. In addition, Bertram could have been eloquent at the end and apologized emphatically in remorse for not taking Helena to be his wife originally, but he doesn't he says, "I'll love her dearly, ever ever dearly." ....BAD RHYME. makes us feel like everything is all right while at the same time question if it's true that "All's well that ends well..."

-Shakespeare, (this point is almost a no duh statement), was always fascinated by the power of love. But one question he never actually answered or dealt with was this "How does love work?" For his characters, he pretty deals with it as an obsession, something that comes over his characters, and sometimes sexual, too. But we never fully come out saying, this is how Shakespeare thinks love works.

-Some Basic Themes that he loves:

-The power of Love (see above: can't explain it or predict it)

-The capacity of humans to get out of problems

-The power of the imagination (tends to be feminine, women are more interesting in his plays then men [in many of them, anyway!!])

-The Dangers of vanity and pride (See Parolles in All's Well)

-Unreliability of Language (puns, meaning, etc).

-he also likes to include the inverse of all these themes (their limitations, so to speak), imagination can be deadly, language is always good for communication, love can be devastating, etc).

-So he really likes the complementary and sometimes contrasting ideas or issues of something, and both sides will come up in many parts of his works.

-Parolles the character is actually a spin off the French word for "words," so you can kinda see double meaning in the egotistical, pompous...fool.

-Another part of Shakespeare's balances: quivocal ideas. the French word for pun is actually "equivoque," two different ways of looking at something. So, in this case, Helena is a wife, but she's not really a wife because he won't have her, etc.

So overall, it was interesting listening to him. I'll tell you what, I've learned more about shakespeare in the past week and a half than I have in my entire life and it's been AWESOME! Kyle actually said the other day that he "can't believe he's saying this, but that he thinks he's starting to actually like Shakespeare." so cool, changing some of our perspectives on certain types of theater, etc.

------

Madame Butterflllyyyy

-In 1901 Puccini (great Italian Composer) watched the play, "Madame Butterfly," written by an American at the Duke of York theater (which we saw Arcadia in!!). He didn't know hardly any English, but was deeply moved by teh play and was also very interested in the idea of women trying to elevate or empower themselves, but always portrayed it as a tragically sad scenario.

-I think we all agreed, it shouldn't have been translated into English. We had to read the subtitles anyway! might as well have been in Italian! might have flowed better anyway. I still think it's weird that when they sing a song nothing rhymes and when they speak their lines they're just singing. woo opera.

-And thus, you have Madame Butterfly, the opera. The tale of a Japanese girl whose family was shameful (for unknown reasons except that the Mikado mandated that her father must kill himself [Interesting side note: men had to commit suicide by disemboweling themselves; women just had to slit their throats, guess which would be harder to do...]). It centers around a Japanese industry during the war (i dunno, something in Nagasaki in the 1890s...), an industry of marriages that simply legalized prostitution. Kinda like Geishas, sold to Americans to be wives for a night, or longer, and they could get out of the contract at any point, just temporary marriages for one thing only...

-Not much happens in the opera, I think which is typically of the opera, act 1: marriage, act 2: baby and alone waiting for the American (Pinkerton) to return, act 3: he does because he finds out she had a son, he's married, tells her he can't but he's sorry, she kills herself (sorry mom).

-But this opera, my friends, was different. directed by Anthony Minghella (who actually passed away recently, and wasn't old or anything, the show opened in June), who generally was a film director, he used EVERYTHING he could possibly think of to add detail, beauty and...awesomeness to this show. Besides, he had to do it differently it's been done so many times. The lighting was extremely elaborate, it changes constantly...literally. There was a lot more movementa nd choreography, japanese-esque, and it was choreographed by his wife so that's cool. There's a mirror above the stage, so you sorta see everything twice, and it also was good for sound, too i think. The stage itself slanted up, which looked kinda weird but was very beautiful to see all the different levels when people were on the slanted part. There is a three-year-old child in the play, Madame Butterfly's son, and in this show they used a marionette doll/puppet as the child. it seemed to me it would have been impossible otherwise, simply because they call to the child and whatnot, and I don't know how they would have done it with a real 3 yr old kid.

-BIIIIIIGGG orchestra... let me be exact: an EIGHTY piece orchestra! TONS of violins. It was beautiful. kinda weird though because sometimes the violins played the exact same note as Madame Butterfly (ie, really high!) and she blended in so well you could hardly hear her. The orchestra also incorporated some intreesting sounds: Asiain ones (using a pentatonic scale [wholetone scale], some common Japanese melodies, various parts of The Star-Spangled Banner for the Americans [kinda awkward.], and even tried to sound like a organ during the church part. too cool.

-The part of BF Pinkerton (lead male, guy who marries her), was actually played by a different guy tonight!! The original, has been having some vocal problems and was warming up THIS AFTERNOON and realized he wasn't going to be able to do it. They didn't put in an understudy, but called some guy in Scotland who had done the show before and got him to FLY down from Scotland and do the show at 7:30 p.m.! I can't even imagine! Anyway, considering the circumstance, he did brilliantly. We only noticed two places where he messed up the lyrics, and that's just because of the wonderful subtitles that were right above the stage. haha. what would you do without subtitles in an opera! :)

-Favorite was probably this duet at the end of act one with Pinkerton and Butterfly. SOOO Beautiful. And they had it all dark and midnight blue and there were all these "floating" white lamps that were just gorgeous moving around them. so pretty. the show itself was extremely beautiful. So many vivid colors and contrasts, and it was just awesome. very visually cool.

-Act 2 she pretty much sang the whole time. She rocked it. I really liked her because she didn't just make the normal ugly I'm-singing-opera face that many opera singers do (I can think of one, mom, can you???). She had great facial expressions and body movement, too. An overall good actress in addition to be able to kill someone with her vibrato. I think we all agreed at one point in act 1 it was higher than a normal hearing frequency. I thought we had lapsed into some ringing piercingly high dial tone...but it was her...chillin. haha

-Some pretty quotes:

"You wonder at the world but feel nothing at all."

"It would be past forgiveness to crush those fragile wings, to bring despair to a heart so full of trust."

"The night will embrace us while the rest of the world sleeps."

title of this blog.

-We'll see if this video works:

-Anyway, loved the show, as long as you take it to be opera and not a comedic musical, anyone could like it. Opera may not be your thing (certainly isn't mine), but if you take it for what it is, this show was amazing. Respect if anything. I have a ton of respect for how awesome that show was. the cast, the conductor, etc. good good good! I also rocked out my opera skills after the show. when asked if I'm gonna be the next Madame Butterfly, I said "Psh, I am Madame Butterfly. ahhhhh--AAAHHHHHHHHH" hehe.

This afternoon we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum (Have you heard of this one mom?) It was AWESOME!!!! AND it has something for everything. it's just different exhibits and then across time. They had a sculpture section, paintings section, silver and gold section, iron junk section, Fashion section, jewelry section, books section, stained glass windows section, some british stuff, an entire exhibit on asian everything, textile section, and my favorite, theatre and performance section. All across time. It was very cool and very interesting. we didn't cover everything, but I did all the exhibits I really wanted to do I think. It was a really neat museum. glad I went. I also went with different people today. Chelsea, Geoff, Tyler, Rachel, Robert, and John. because the gallon boys all wanted to work out at the gym and i had a feeling I wouldn't be doing aynthing if I waited for them (I wouldn't have) so I went with them so fun. Except I got Tyler and myself lost on the way to the English National Opera and we really cut it close. It was the first time I'd gotten people lost! We got off at the wrong tube station. Well, the other day i led the boys in the wrong way, but at least we were on the right street and figured it out. But other than that, I rock as guide person. Well, I try anyway. with my map and my awesome guidebook (by the way, meredith! The Time Out London book is amazing! I use it literally every day!).

Tomorrow is Hatfield House, so i'm excited about that. and then Been So Long, a new hip-hop musical. ....which should be fun anyway! we haven't done a normal musical yet this week so I'm excited.

That's it i think. I'm pretty sure we're taking a half day trip out to Oxford on Saturday which will be nice.

More Soon.

So sleepy!

With Love,

Becca

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

2009-07-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

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

I have such a yearning to be more than I am...But you're everything. To me you're everything. What more could you be?

2009-07-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

-Andrew Bovell, "When the Rain Stops Falling"

Sorry, it's been a few days. So busy, and tired and whatnot, but I did sleep ten hours last night so that was lovely.

Where did I leave off? Ah yes, As You Like It day.

Friday, As You Like It was at 2 p.m. so we had class a little earlier so we could get over there.

During class we talked a lot about As you Like it and some of the Shakespearian traditions at the time. Even though the Globe is actually only a replica of what we "think" the actual theater looked like, while adding in some modern day fire code regulations, it was still pretty cool. I saw it the last time I was in London, but it is a different experience when coming to see a show there.

-Originally, the globe was said to hold over 3000 people. They would just cram in as many people as they could. Poorer classes in standing room only, and richer classes on balconies close to the stage. Although these seats had obstructed viewing of the play, they, there, could be "seen." Very rich people (ie ...the queen) would sit on the stage, where they could be seen, have great visibility of thy play, but obstructed everyone else watching the play (hehe). Today, the globe can fit 2,200 people comfortably.

-Shakespeare actually worked for a prestigious theater company that did plays there. Theater companies, at the time, had to be attached to a "house" or person, etc, to be considered legitimate. His company was attached to Lord Chamberlain, who actually licensed plays and was well known, so they were pretty blessed. Not to mention, because of their attachment, they got to perform for the Court

-As You Like It was performed in the Elizabethan era (Queen Elizabeth's time)

-Shakespeare not only wrote, but was a producer, shareholder in the theater company, and an actor (we know he played the ghost in Hamlet), in addition to being a writer for his company

-He really didn't want his plays published; didn't want people making money off of them. Thus, he would only write out 1 singly copy of the play and took it to a scribe to make one copy for the stage manager, and then sides for the actors (which had only the specific actor's lines and cue lines). Obviously, simply doing this allowed for mistakes to be made, especially since a copier could have changed anything. Plus, plays were put on so fast that actors would "fribble" (adlibbing in blank verse in iambic pentameter [quite impressive if you think about it.]).

-So, if someone really wanted their hands on the play, they could bribe all (or some) of the actors to go to a scribe together and...recite the play. Hence, even more mistakes

-Thus, any play you see of Shakespeare's is probably only an approximation. Considering the translations that have been made over time; probably significantly different to what they originally were. ...pretty interesting

-His plays are written with "analogous action" - the threads of his plays mirror and comment on each other. For example, within As You Like It alone, we have a Duke against a Duke (brother to brother), Oliver vs Orlando (also brother to brother), which creates sort of a Cain and Abel allusion.

-Orlando and Rosalind (lovers), have analogous situations, they're nice, smart, witty, and everyone likes them, so they both get banished (haha)

-Touchstone and Audrey, as well

-Phebe and Silvius

-All of these analogous relationships go down in social scale because Shakespeare wrote appealing to everyone who was in the audience

-certain cool characters: Adam biblical and acting as the servant who serves his master relentlessly; Rosalind (originally played by a 14 year old male), puts on male clothing to hide herself and takes up the name ganymede (the boy Zeus fell in love with...interesting; this situation itself just shows how much Shakespeare was interested in gender complexity and ambiguity); Jaques (though french, is pronounced "Jay-quees" in English language, is a stock character of a meloncholic (Jakes, being an old name for outhouses, haha), which was actually a persona that interested people (we just write them off as depressed), because they seemed to be romantic, and they actually dressed in a certain way that people could recognize them in the play as a melancholic, soooo...Jaques was actually dressed and behaved as a persona people would recognize.

-the role of wit sometimes spoofs using poetry "Nice is nice" but also reaffirms that poetry is the language of love (oo la la)

SO As You Like It the performance

-The Globe used to be quite tourist-y (Family...think Moulin Rouge in France style). Cool place... bad acting and theater. Three years ago they got a new director who has really changed the way things have been done, and now they do REALLY good theater

-Clum's best adivce: "three words...Rent. The. Cushion." wooden benches for 2.5 hours would have been rough. :)

-As You Like It (dad) was done in a more traditional way. costumes and such. no modernization really. except every now and then they would add sort of a modern hint in some way. One actor was talking about how children behave as rascals or something and patted a boy on the head. stuff like that. Also, at the very end, when all four couples get married, they do a traditional shakespearian dance. Right after that, they broke out into this wildly fun dance that was definitely 2009, silly, and fun and we clapped and whatnot. it was great

-Touchstone, was everyone's favorite. HE WAS HILARIOUS. Played by Dominic Rowan, who CLum says traditionally plays Romantic hero roles, the guy really really really wanted to do this part. and was phenomenal. He had jibes and movements and facials that were great.

-My favorite, was Rosalind...Naomi Frederick. She was pretty and strong. and awesome. Also my favorite line is said by her "I am a woman. When I think, I must speak." (irony: She was actually supposed to be played by a man dressed up as a woman...who eventually dresses up like a man).

-The columns on the stage were decorated to look like trees in the forest which was cool.

-When Orlando starts writing on every tree bad poetry about how much he loves Rosalind, they started dropping little slips of paper with poems onto them into the audience...hilarious

-They gave the people standing up, paper hats to block the sun, I got one. I had to. they're hilarious..

-It was overall a great performance. Clum says it's the best he's ever seen of As You Like It. It was hilarious, well acted, and definitely changed a lot of our groups' minds about Shakespeare. It is so much easier to watch shakespeare. Not to mention, you catch more of his wit, sarcasm, and irony by listening to it. Reading it...You have to be fully devoted to actually catch all the tones and emotions of it. I loved it.

(the globe and Kyle & I with the funny paper hats to block the sun)

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

Today

Today, I slept in until 10:30 and said, fine, I'll get up. I do like the bed here. I rounded up...Geoff, Cameron, Kyle, Chelsea, and Ted and we started to head over to the theater for today because it was in a different area (Islington, which was actualy a really cool little area). We first stopped at King's Cross to catch the underground....and see Platform 9 & 3/4 (Kind of a big deal for Harry Potter fans, mom and dad). Got to Islingston and went to this restaurant called Chilango which was like Chipotle and very cool. I got a vegetarian one with peppers and guac. yummy mucho mucho.

Today's show was When the Rain Stops Falling," which turned out to be a perfect title. The theater, the Almeida, is actually a new theater, in an old building 1837, used to be some scientific and literary institute, been 100 things since then and is not a theater starting 1980 I think. Clum saw it a couple weeks ago with a group of graduate students he did a program with for two weeks. There was a bunch of famous people there (ie Dustin Hoffman) there to see it because it's really gotten in the news. Asked us if we wanted to see it, of course we were all in, got us scattered seats. and off we went today.

When the Rain Stops Falling was originally performed in Australia in 2008 (yeah, brand new). This was it's European premiere (and No, mom, I dunno if this could ever come to the States...). It openings with rain POURING on the stage.

I got the play. Had to. such great monologues (future audition material). and good story (maybe read this one, too, mom?)

I wanna retype something on the back of the play, gives you an idea about it:

"An epic play spanning four generations and two hemispheres, When the Rain Stops Falling moves from the claustrophobia of a London flat in 1959 to the windswept coast of southern Australia, and into the heart of the Australian desert in 2039. ...[it] interwaves a series of connected stories, as seven people confront the mysteries of their past in order to understand their future, revealing how patterns of betrayal, love and abandonment are passed on. Until finally, as the desert is inundated with rain, one young man finds the courage to defy the legacy."

It was incredibly sad, but amazing. That describes it pretty well, and I don't want to give one part away, in case you want to read it, mom.

But I love the way playwrights can intermingle time frames. there were four time periods that sometimes were on stage all together, and other times just them. It led you back and forth between different times, so you pieced together yourself how everything actually played out. I made a prediction about how Gabrielle's seven year old brother was killed (as did a couple others), that turned out to be true so I was pretty proud of myself (haha). But it was so interesting to see how it played out. and SO SAD. Today was their last performance, and I am so glad that Clum got us tickets.

One key part of it was Ayer's Rock, which Nate (if you're reading this!) walked around in Australia for five hours. It was pretty cool! I thought of you!

Anyway, it is Fourth of July (Wish I was at the lake, watching the fireworks from the boat SO BAD) and I should go hang out with my American friends, haha, but I'll try and write a little bit more tomorrow.

I'll just leave you with the opening scene of When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell and then my favorite quotes typed out, just so I'll remember.

First scene:

Let us begin with

A steady fall of rain.

Gabriel York wears a raincoat...

People pass him by. Back and forth. Back and forth....they carry umbrellas and raincoats. Their heads are bent against the relentless weather and against their relentless lives. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until in unison they stop.

And Gabriel opens his mouth and screams.

And a woman falls to her knees in the street.

And a fish falls from the sky and lands at Gabriel's feet.

Black.

--------

(all the people walking around are actually all the characters from all the time periods and generations. very cool).

-----

fave quotes and some are paraphrased. (applicable to the play):

"There are parts of me you have never touched."

-Gabrielle York

"'Passions, great passions can elevate the soul to do great things.' But a woman without passion in her life, has nothing to do but wait." - Elizabeth perry

"Dear Son, in the desert, on a clear night, if you know where to look, you can see the planet Saturn. The word planet derives from the Greek and means wanderer. Saturn is named after the Roman god who devoured his own son. Forgive me."

-Henry Law

"You can be standing on solid ground then without even noticing, it turns to water beneath you. And if you don't move, you'll drown."

-Gabrielle York

"I have such a yearning to stand under a different sky than the one I was born under"

-Gabriel Law

"I have such a yearning to be more than I am."

"But you're everything. To me you're everything. What more could you be?"

-Henry Law, Elizabeth Perry

"You don't have a right to see the future."

-Elizabeth

"Let the dead take care of the dead."

-Gabriel, then others

"Cruel aren't they? Parents."

"Cruel aren't they? Children."

"And I know she's safe, this Gabrielle, but I'm holding on. I'm still holding on"

-Joe

"Having nothing to say is another way of having so much to say you dare not begin."

-Elizabeth perry (older) and a couple others.

"I love being in a car at night... because you can only see so far ahead and that's enough, for now."

"I love you"

-Gabrielle. then Gabriel.

"Somewhere at the end of this mess is where you belong."

-Gabriel York (to Andrew - 4th generation)

"Listen...the rain has stopped."

-Gabriel York.

"Only remembered for what we have done."

2009-07-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

Today, was the first chill day all week, I think everyone appreciated it. I did, until I had a terrible headache at the theater, but I didn't let it get to me.

This morning we talked with Paul Ready, just asking him questions about Time and the Conways, so that was interesting. and then we worked at staggered times with him on our scenes. The coolest part was that, not only could he figure out what was actually going on in the scene without even thinking about it (that part i had done before meeting with him!), he could actually figure out HOW the characters were saying different lines. And sometimes I think that's the hardest thing for people with shakespeare; most of us know how to read it, it's just the intonations we can't figure out. I'll read an entire soliloquy in my mind in a state of anger, only to realize later that the character was actually sad. so he just worked with us on how to make those emotions come across when we're saying such peculiar things. I'm excited, but we have a lot of work ahead.

Then I came upstairs, and got in bed to try to take a nap. I thought i wasn't going to be able to fall asleep. and then I did....for two and a half hours! It was great. Got up, figured out where the rest of the theaters are for the next five weeks so I can figure out where we have to be every night no matter where we are, started making a list of things Neal needs to see when he's here (canNOT wait!) and chilled.

Then Cam, Geoff, Kyle, Tyler, Alex and I headed out to grab dinner on the way to the theater. i got... an appetizer and bread and it cost me 12 pounds. i was not very happy. :(

War Horse

War Horse actually started as part of a festival that London does (annually i think). They turn a popular children's book into a stage play. Well, this one did SO well, that it was moved to a theater, New London, as part of the National Theater and now plays as a West End show.

here's some pics to give you an idea of the brilliance of it:

(that's the baby!)

Although I have given lots of pictures for you to try to get the idea, I think everyone in our group would agree, nothing does justice to actually watching those puppeteers move those horses. or seeing an actor galloping on one. or see the way the horse can twitch it's ears, flick up it's tail, or bend it's head out and down, just like normal horses' gestures. it was incredible.

The story itself was pretty heartbreaking, but standard for horse-childrens books. Boy gets horse on accident (drunk father), raises it, falls in love with it, it gets taken away (to be in the army in WWI, this is the sad part), boy joins the army underage in order to find it, almost loses it a few times, and then boy and horse are reunited in the end.

It was amazing. special effects were great. An interesting projector screen across the top of the stage showed dates, times, places, or just sketches of the location we were at to keep you up to speed.

My one and only complaint....and i wouldn't even call it a complaint because i truly truly loved the show. ...it was long. And since there was no AC, and we were in the balcony (heat rises), and i had a headache which is pretty typical after days that I take afternoon naps. it was pretty tough. but i tried to not let it bother me and just enjoyed the show. It was still really cool though. Great acting as well. And everyone really liked the added in a cappella (some instruments every now and then) singing of the ensemble to add to certain points (don't forget accordion man), really made it one big entire picture/story that was unfolding in front of us. very cool.

and of course, the goose puppet was very comical.

if I HAD to choose, which i really wouldn't want to, probably not my favorite so far (don't ask me what was, i have loved them ALL! [side note: still thought those horses were INCREDIBLE]), but I think this might have been IT for some kids in our group. I dunno, I guess I just generally like cliche plays with symbols of love and interesting relationships between people rather than horse and boy, but part of me doesn't even know what I'm saying because I got teary-eyed at the end. so ....i think i'm just going to end this paragraph haha.

It was! It was such a sight, I was more sad that no one back home will get to see them, and i can hardly explain the way they worked and moved. but it was so cool. and the lighting was great and interesting. and I thought the boy actor was FABULOUS, though his voice did bother me a little at first, too.

Favorite quote (in a song at the end):

"Shall we be at last united in glory, only remembered for what we have done."

I was talking to cameron tonight after the show about how the first play we see that has a slight defect (not even a real, full out one), we're all gonna be like "that show was awful!" because the shows this week have just been untouchable, indescribable, ...awesome.

Tomorrow. I think the plan is class...15 min earlier. Shakespeare's globe for As You Like It (My first professional shakespeare performance i think...or that I can remember anyway!), and then we're all gonna come back and make dinner together. we'll see if that goes down. 14 people is just enough to make it hard to organize everything.

and train tickets to Paris are about 150 pounds. :( I'm thinking for break maybe just taking a bunch of day trips instead. I've never toured stonehenge, windsor castle, or oxford. Problem is, we were going to do those kind of trips on all the other weekends. but UGH. i dunno if paris is worth the trouble anymore :-/ for two/three days anyway...so we'll see.

I can't believe I've been here for less than a week; I feel like it's been months. But I am having a blast though.

and my straightener isn't working with the converters. at all. it won't even come on for a second. So I pretty much have no way to do my hair...at all. rocking the wild becca hair look every day.

well...I AM tired.

miss you. night.

becca

p.s. hmmm nevermind! guess you CAN see a bit of what it looks like when it moves. Cam found a trailer for the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bni4QqSv4

In an ocean of ashes, islands of order. Patterns making themselves out of nothing. - Tom Stoppard

2009-07-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hola! The first picture is at Trafalgar Square. Today was Canada Day, anyone know why?

The second picture is Geoff, Cameron, me, Robert, Alex, Ted, and Kyle at the Household Cavalry Museum, which is apparantly new. I dragged them all because they couldnt come up wtiha plan for themselves and I wasn't about to stand out there sweating for an hour until we had to go over to the theater.

Paul Ready was awesome today! All of us agreed he looked really different compared to how he was in Time and The Conways last night, especially the fact that he was SO Skinny!!! He wore suits and a tux in the play, and look much bigger. He was definitely very tiny and skinny, and not clean shaven like in the play (haha). But very nice, funny, and a little bit quirky. He taught us some really (like seriously) useful tools for reading shakespeare. If you read it one time, it's so hard to get anything out of it. But he showed us some really cool things you can do. And we discussed words that should be stressed and stuff. My favorite thing he taught us was actually where Shakespeare has hidden within his plays places for characters to take a breath or a pause (a beat). In the plays themselves, the ONLY stage directions given are entering and exiting. It's hard to explain on the internet, but it has to do with iambic pentameter and when lines don't fill up the normal 5 feet of one like and must be finished. Or...a pause can be taken for about 3 feet (if two were used up), and he showed us how we can tell based on what's being discussed between the characters so we can tell who should and why take a pause there. very cool!

Geoff and I are the first group to work with him tomorrow on our Shakespeare scene, so I hope we get a lot out of it. Most groups have four in them, so I'm glad it's just Geoff and I so he can really work with us. He also is letting us ask questions about Time and the Conways tomorrow, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

I talked to an audience member one night (A Little Night Music actually), about if there was a rule about standing ovations in London. He said "No, not at all" and I said "Then how come no one ever stands up to applaud?" and told him about when we saw History Boys and no one did. He said "I think English people are just more reticent."

....That is annoying. Every show so far has been AMAZING. and even if it weren't, I can SEE how hard every actor is putting into these shows. They're fully dedicated, and that should be enough to satnd up! Not to mention, I've already dedicated 2.5 hours of my time sitting on my butt to watch them, the least I can do is stand up to clap for them (since they have been working much harder!). In addition, You gotta stand up to leave the theater anyway.... grr. I end up clapping and bouncing in my chair just because I want them to know how much I appreciate their performances. They're so fabulous!

-----

Arcadia

by: Tom Stoppard

So this was a play we had to read ahead of time, and I was extremely excited because it was the play I enjoyed the most that we had to read. it was very difficult to understand, and also dealt with different time periods (Time, as you can see, is a common theme this week, and is also a prompt for our first paper, oh boy!). Except for this one we have two different time periods, 1809 and the present, occurring in the same room! At first they go back and forth between scenes and then finally the two time periods merge and are occurring simultaneously on stage! They just can't see the other people in the time period. The present characters are trying to find out what was going on with the past characters. And we get to figure it all out before they do, because they're basing their research on notebooks, primers, letters, etc. and we're watching it unfold in the other time period.

The difficult part, is not only the way Stoppard writes, but the way he finds a clue, but you don't even realize it's a clue until much later. This is an extremely useful skill in writing, but is rather hard to follow on the stage (especially for a bunch of teenage boys who ran around london all day, are exhausted, and didn't actually read the play beforehand....zzzz.). Thus, I was very glad I read it beforehand so I knew what to be paying attention for. Besides, there were a few things I didn't understand while reading it that made a WHOLE lot more sense watching it on the stage!

Again, it was another very visually appealing show. The set was plain but expansive and gorgeous, which sounds like an oxymoron, but i liked it a lot. It was a cut-out rectangular room, and I liked it when they create the set with three walls, and not sort of this oddly shaped room that works better for an audience to be able to see everything. It was very cool.

I also liked the costumes a lot. The 1809 ones that is. Very pretty, especially Lady Croom.

One of the coolest things I like about the play is that three of the people in the present are looking for three different things in the past. For Bernard (funny pronunciation in England!), it's the past of Lord Byron, who is actually at the house of the Coverlys in the 1800s but never seen on stage. Hannah is looking for the Hermit who lived in the Hermitage (because what really is a hermitage, without a hermit?) during that time period. And Valentine, starts off looking at grouse at the time and mathematical equations, but once he discovers some of the things Thomasina (the young girl of the Coverly home) had written in her lesson book, switches over to commit himself to her ingenious, profound, and unheard of before then, ideas.

The latter, was my personal favorite search. Valentine was played by Ed Stoppard (Sound familiar? - It's the author's son!) finds out that Thomasina developed an equation of an iterated algorithm that can graph unimaginable graphs, such as that of a leaf, by plugging in an x, solving it for y, and then plugging the solution back in for x again. What you get (as we learn in the play), is a whole bunch of random dots on a graph, making absolutely no sense, but when you do them a couple...million times, using a computer (something Thomasina, obviously, had no access to), you get that graph. and Valentine helps her to finish what she started because she dies (so sad!) before her 17th birthday. Then comes my favorite quote "In an ocean of ashes, islands of order. Patterns making themselves out of nothing."

He also finds out about a discover she made that added a dilemma to Newton's theorems. Her idea that heat is the one thing that we can never get back. and as another character says "Everything will turn cold" or to room temperature, and there's nothing we can do to run it backwards, or get it back. it can only run one way. You can throw a ball through a window, but you can neve rdo it backwards. you can pick up all the pieces of glass and try to put them all back, but you can never collect back up all the heat of the smash. It's gone. Coffee will go to room temperature. Everything will be cold.

In the end, all of the characters find out part of what they're looking for. But even then, Hannah, realizes that's not what is even important.

"It's all trivial - your grouse, my hermit, Bernard's Byron. Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in." - Hannah

"When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore."

"Then we will dance."

(Septimus and Thomasina)

Good actors as usual, too. This is a super hard piece, with so much going on and SO many props, so I gotta hand it to them.

It was a great comedy, intense ideas, and top notch theater. good night!

More tomorrow if I think of anything else. I definitely won't forget this one.

I would love to do it some day, turns out Clum directed it one time a loonnnng time ago at Duke. go figure.

Tomorrow: working with Paul Ready on our individual shakespeare scenes. questions on T&C. dunno what else between break and then War Horse. Should be incredible. Huge puppets that have to be controlled by six people. Horses puppets controlled by SIX people! And apparently the actors ride them!!! should be awesome. Clum also got us tickets for a saturday matinee he wanted us to see. We all voted and it was unanimous that we wanted to see it. apparently it rains onstage and that one.

I can't believe this is my life for the next five weeks. I was talking to one girl, Eugenie, about how much we like this schedule. Class, sightseeing, Oh! and Off to the theater for the evening! EVERY DAY!.

Stoppard put me in a writing mood. So clever.

Bed.

Cheers!

Bec

"As if we're all immortal beings...on one big great adventure" - JB Priestley

2009-06-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

(At Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace).

Today, was another great day. I successfully dragged two boys around London, figured out the underground system, saw play #2 and had a great time!

Class today was really discussion about A Little Night Music from last night, and then prepping us for Time and the Conways (Which was tonight), and Arcadia (Tomorrow, SOOO excited), and War Horse on Thursday. Reason we had to prep for all of those was because Paul Ready is coming tomorrow to teach us how to speak more easily in Shakespearian language. Should be Awesome! He was one of the lead characters in Time and The Conways (He played Alan), did a fabulous job, and I cannot wait to meet him tomorrow.

After Class Kyle, Alex, Geoff, and I went to get pizza from this place that Clum recommended. They were ready made every day and completely different. I got potato and artichoke pizza, which was interesting, but very good. We ate in a park off of Gray's Inn Road, which was really nice. then we went back to Waitrose (the nicest grocery store around), and got some stuff. I got peanut butter and jelly and bread to make sandwiches for lunch instead of eating out. Then, no one really wanted to do anything, and I said, "I'm only in London one time," so I grabbed as many people as I could....Kyle and Geoff, and convinced them I knew where I was going and we hopped on an underground. We jumped off after awhile and got to Buckingham Palace and all the other stuff around there. WE just checked everything out and looked around. Then, instead of walking, we jumped back on the tube and took it over to Parliament, which brought us RIGHT NEXT to parliament. We literally walked up the stairs face to face with it. Walked around it, checking in out, and were like, well, let's just check how expensive a tour is, and the lady was like it's about a 30 minute wait, but it's free. So we jumped on that. Turns out not for a regular tour, but we went through security and waited in a couple lines and then next thing I new we were behind a glass partition watching the dudes in the House of Commons debating! They'd get all fiesty and you see them all try to interrupt each other and say "hur ha ha hur ha hura hea yeah hur" it was pretty cool! and then we went and got to see the same thing in the House of Lords. It was really cool. The last time I was in London, I don't think Congress was in session, so we go to see the rooms, but not them in action. It's weird though that not all of them have to be there though.

Then we headed over to the theater just so we knew we'd be on time. We found a sushi restaurant called Ping Pong, which was very good and interesting, but expensive (as usual). The only bad thing that happened was that when the waiter asked us if we wanted dessert, I played a trick on Kyle and asked "Hey Kyle Don't you want some expresso?" Because he had some the night before and then couldn't fall asleep until like 3 am. and he said "Oh God, no" and we think the waiter thought we meant the restaurant was bad and he didn't come back for like 30 minutes to give us our check. I felt bad and told him it was delicious, but he wouldn't look at us anymore. well...we're just stupid Americans anyway.

Time and the Conways

The interesting mechanism in this show (A dramatic comedy, take that for an oxymoron) was family. It was amazing how much work the cast had done to get that family feel. It's extremely hard to recreate the way a family behaves around each other and no one else, the way family members look at each other like they are family, the way they move and behave because they feel at home. It's extremely difficult, and the cast of Time and The Conways was phenomenal at it! I was blown away by how they merged together, despite all of them having such interesting stories of their own and leading parts.

Rupert Goold took some huge liberties with the sci-fi, the twilight zone -esque, techniques at the end of each act, and for awhile it bothered me because it, first of all, wasn't scripted, and second-of-all, didn't really further the plot any because I already understand everything that was going on. I'm very anxious to hear Paul Ready's take on all the technological stuff because, though it was absolutely incredible, seemed oddly placed.

Act 1: 1919, Kay's 21st birthday. We get a family of six children, a single mother, and a few friends at a party, in a separate room though, dressing up for a game of charades. (I like how they say it here: "sharodds.") They are all young, happy, bubbly, excited, dreaming and hopeful about the future, but covering themselves up with clothes they don't fit in (symbolic). Kay, a writer, sits to write in her notebook, when comes under a extreme twilight zone moment, and everything completely FROZE! With papers falling to the ground, and Carol's (well, technically Kay's b-day present) scarf stuck mid-air (that looked SO cool), and the stage rotated, with everything frozen. SO COOL.

Act 2: Almost 20 years later. 1938. We see what has become of each of these characters, how differently anyone would have expected them to be. The prettiest daughter who could get all the boys is stuck with a short and stout abusive husband, Robin (the favorite son) treats his wife and children cruelly, leaving for months at a time. Madge is completely alone, stiff, and mean (which we find out later is her mother's fault). Carol is dead (the youngest, happiest and most full of life). Kay is extremely bitter, unhappily trapped as a journalist, angry, and miserable. Alan, the oldest, seemed almost to be the least changed, though he did seem sadder and more lonely (his love was taken by Robin, who ruined her). And the mother is left broken, poor, and hating all her children. After everyone has left, Alan quotes an author to Kay who spoke of how life possesses both woe and joy and understanding that both will be existent in life, "safely through the world we go," and it seems to comfort Kay. She goes over to a mirror. and suddenly the house is broken apart, flies away, and there are seven Kays in front of seven identical mirrors copying her movmeents at different times. It was incredible.

3rd act: Picks up in 1919 where Act 1 left off, but with a changed Kay because she realizes something has happened, but isn't sure what. When the family decides to discuss what everyone's future holds, and characters begin to speak of their dreams, Kay starts freaking out because she realizes it's not going to be anything like that and that everyone will be miserable. She turns to Alan and says "Alan, there is something you wanted to say to me. Something that would make it more bearable," but of course Alan doesn't know what she's talking about, nor has read that author yet. Everything gets all twilight zone-y and Alan finally admits he feels that one day he will have something important to say to her (safely through the world we go), and then the two are in from of a hologram machine. Each of them is moving in time, in different ways, but sometimes they are moving with each other, sometimes they're moving with their future selves. Sometimes future Alan is moving with Past Kay and vice versa. IT WAS CRAZY. Unlike anything I've ever seen before. Yet strangely, odd.

(Sorry, I gave so much away Mom, I gotta remember somehow!)

Common themes: family. living life to the fullest. we cannot control time. time has us.

quotes I liked:

"Kay I think you're wonderful"

"I think life is wonderful."

"I think you both are"

-Carol and Kay

"She said she was tired of everything"

-Hazel

"A seed is easily destroyed but it may have grown into an oak tree"

-Madge, seed destroyed by her own mother.

"As if we're all immortal beings."

"Yes, on one big great adventure."

-Kay and Alan.

"The point is to live."

-Carol

One thing that struck me was how old they all seemed in 1938. I mean they were only 20 years old, the oldest, Alan, was 44. At first this bothered me because 44 year olds don't act super old, but when I thought of the turn of events that brought them to their new prospective lives, I realized that it was those events that prematurely aged them. and so that worked.

The other thing I enjoyed was the technical side of it. They showed the same exact house twenty years later and it had different wallpaper and furniture but you could still tell it was the same house and that looked extremely cool. The girls wigs were fabulous. I had no idea they were wigs until the seven Kays came out. They each had two, and none of them looked fake. And the sci-fi stuff of course was really cool.

Something is still bothering me a little, but I cant really put my finger on what. Maybe we'll have time to discuss it more with Paul tomorrow and I'll understand.

For now. i need bed, badly.

Tomorrow: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. I am definitely excited about this one. should be amazing.

Again I just want to reiterate how awesome London theater is. They can do whatever they want, try new things, and it can totally work. I am so thankful and blessed.

Much love,

Rebecca

"Theater is a celebration of language." - Clum

2009-06-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it really is, isn't it. In its simplest form, a script of a play is merely words on a page that state something or tell a story. What theater does, through a play, is glorify the words on the page, putting them in front of a willingly receptive audience, with actors moving and creating a connected picture, with lights and sounds and music added in, too. So it's just a way of taking language, words, and using them to raise big questions, ideas, and issues, generally leaving it up to the audience to decide how they feel about it, or try to answer some of the questions for themselves.

Why is that a celebration? Well, what are we, but our connections to the world, to the people in our lives, to our beliefs, to our knowledge. How

do we get anything across? Language.

That is what this six week program is. A celebration.

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

Today, was a much better day. The bed was quite comfortable, I finally found hangers, and I got a fan. 90s in Florida is bad with AC. 80s in London with no A

C is hot as heck.

My thoughts on class are above. It was interesting. Clum sort of gave us a history of London theater, different ideas, and talked about the show we would see that night (A Little Night Music) and some about Time and the Conways (tomorrow's show, should be fabulous). I think the general consensus of all the kids is that Clum knows everyone famous. Everyone. He knows Hugh Jackman. The Lead character in Time in the Conways is going to come teach me how to act on Wednesday and Thursday. yeah.

Random cool things I learned in class (just side stuff):

-The Office was originally started in the UK (It's pretty obvious how much experimenting Londoners do in theater; with so many subsidized theate

r institutions [man I wish our taxpayers could donate some to Hoof 'n' Horn and VHS players!], it definitely gives them a little more leeway to try things).

-Let me reiterate the arts are heavily subsidized here. The National Theater of Great Britain is completely subsidized. Students study drama in public school starting Day 1, and have a play reading list that they must complete in order to pass their examinations.

-I liked two metaphors Clum gave us about theater today: 1) Theater is like a church. people come together in a space to share an experience about larger questions. 2) Theater is like a courtroom, where the audience acts as the jury, judging and evaluating the characters, see their talents and where they have failed, etc.

-Revivals are really just bring the present and the past together. It's a new version of old words, and actors really have to figure out why they are reviving this in order to give it new meaning. Clum said a cool quote, "Treat a new play like it's a classic, and treat a classic like it's a new play."

-"A script is not a play, it's a blueprint." Plays are meant to be seen and heard. Not read.

-Generally, plays are the last chapter of a really long story. You find out parts of the story through exposition told by the characters. Take any play, and think about it.

-Theater is just overall much easier to do here. People can turn a profit with a show in three weeks. In NY you couldn't do that in under a year because of labor union rules, etc. For instance, Orchestra unions have a rule that a certa

in size orchestra is necessary for a certain size theater. For instance, Mamma Mia! is/was in a theater that by the rules needed a 20 person orchestra, Mamma Mia! only needs 9 musical parts, but they are still paying 11 other parts because they have to! CRAZY.

-etc etc etc

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After class we (Ted, Cam, Alex, Kyle, Robert, Geoff, John, and I) went to a pizzeria (there's a million everywhere.) These Italians owned it, a

nd were very nice. We split four pizzas and garlic bread (again, the food is too expensive). Their version of crushed red peppers (which, if you know me, I'm obsessed with when it comes to pizza, pasta, etc), was really weird! It was in like an olive oil jar and liquidy with the crushed red peppers on the bottom. I don't really know what it was, but it was Good!

After that we headed to a Robert (or was it michael??) Dyas and got fans and hangers, hallelujah. And I think we'll be able to return the fans so that's nice. no more wrinkly dresses either. Definitely put me in high spirits, haha.

We came right back to Langton Close and Clum picked us up for a quick tour of some stuff and then to dinner and the first show! We saw a lot of stuff. (Wow, Becca, specific). Erm. We jumped on a double decker bus (Their bus system is almost as good as their underground system, and you can use your tube card [Called an Oyster Card, now] to get on the buses, so that's nice). Went to Covent Garden, which use

d to be a food market a long time ago, but is now shops and restaurants, it was a very cool little area. And then went to the National Gallery of Blah Blah (I'm forgetting names already :( ) and saw some paintings for free (the museum was free). Went to Trafalgar Square (Hey, remember that rents??), It has the big statues of the Lions and the fountain and tons of people. Went on some bridge and looked at the London Eye, B

ig Ben, and Parliament from a far. and He pointed out to us some really expensive flats (apartments) and a really expensive hotel with tiny rooms, as well as some other theaters for future days.

By that time, we were all pretty worn out. Most of the girls had worn heels (Not I!), and everyone was hot and thirsty. We got to the restaurant, The Forge, and they had a whole room set up for us! We got to order whatever we wanted and everyone had three courses, haha. I got linguine arrabiata (pretty much linguine with marinara sauce), Roasted chicken with potato gratin with some yummy sauce, and Banoffee Trifle. Don't ask what that dessert was, but it was AWESOME! bananas, fluffy stuff, and yummy stuff. Then I had earl grey tea, and thought of my momma. The boys pretty much all got steak

and fries, lemon tart and expresso. haha. Clum also ordered wine for the table, too! (Don't worry, I didn't finish my glass, padres). I can't believe the drinking age is 16, though. Sounds way too young, even if it's proper here. We pretty much were in bliss, and just listened to Clum talk really because he has so many cool stories, and of course, knows everyone that's famous.

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A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim

Garrick Theatre (built in the 1880s, reflecting class structure, rich on first balcony, middle class in "the stalls" [best seats by today's standards, and where we sat], and 2nd and 3rd balconies. Very ornate and very old. Europe likes carving naked ladies.

The show itself is a the 4th revival in London of a 1973 musical. It's based on a movie called Smiles of a Summer Night, which is a classical farce (pretty much like the musical, plot-wise, too), that takes place in Sweden at the turn of the century. It possesses stock characters and situations like a old man that marries a teenage, naive girl, a vain soldier acting icy and stiff, a maid who seems to always be aware of everything, but also is the typical...as Clum called it, "sexually alert," a stern young man confus

ed about the world and life and love, a woman dealing with a cheating husband (the soldier), and an actress who is adored by...everyone (by 'everyone,' I mean men, and by 'adored,' I mean a slightly more...desire). Sounds simple, truthfully. But the story handles all issues that come up in life because of such relationships in a very connective, dream-like way, which Sondheim contributed to beautifully with breathtaking musical melodies and poignant lyrics that show up again repetitively, but with newer, different meanings each time. And the director of this revival, Trevor Nunn, was wicked awesome in the way he created the picture on stage, the blocking/movement, the lighting, everythin

g. The show itself was a comedy, but the lighting and setting was rather dark and mysterious, while being lightened up by the dresses of characters Anne (Jessie Buckley), and Fredrika (Katie Buckhholz). and everyone when they were "in the country"

I couldnt help but take out my notebook and jot down quotes in the dark that I didn't want to forget:

"Doesn't anything begin?" - Henrik (Gabriel Vick), the guy struggling with life, is the single character that stands out the most in the c

omedy because he simply can't get himself to fit in a such a life of deceit like the others, unhappy, and yet unwilling to change anything. On top of everything, he's madly in love with Anne, who just so happens to be his 18 year old step-mother to his rather old father. So, he joins the priesthood (which everyone makes fun of him for until the very end), and struggles so much that he almost kills himself. But, yay, Anne gets there in time, and realizes how much she cares about him and they kiss and I was very happy! :) He also played the cello during the show, which was awesome

"How strange to end one's life on a bench in a garden." - Fredrik (Alexander Hanson). An man trying to "renew his unrenewable youth" w

ho has been married before and had a beautiful mistress, Desiree Armfeldt (Hannah Waddingham - phenomenal), marries Anne, knowing her when she was verrry young. Anyway he says this once he realizes that he has brought his family to the country to be close to Desiree only to lose everything (and his wife and son, since they run off together), and is sitting in a garden. It is ironic, really. Anyway, he gets Desiree back so everything turns out okay.

"I'm here at last on the ground, you're in mid-air" - EPIC song. Hannah Waddingham as Desiree in "Send in the Clowns." So pretty and so sad. She realizes that she wants Fredrik for good and tells him so, and he says he cant because

of his wife (just before he finds out she's

run off with his son anyway). That quote was amazing. Explaining it if you dont get it, loses something. so try hard.

And of course, I loved all the group numbers. "A Weekend in the Country" was fabulous, and very visually appealing. I love it when actors are onstage singing, but doing different things in their own separate bubbles. (rather incomparable example: It's Superman (Reprise) Act Two). And the Now, Later, Soon segment at the beginning was sweet.

So overall, Great Start!!! This show tackled some tough ideas about love and life and morality and fidelity and just beautiful.

It is coming to New York in the winter. I'll be interested to see how well it does, simply because it was so experimental, and though it was a comedy, it held a lot of deeper meanings that I'm not sure Americans would prefer over simple-plotted shows that just have bright colors to entice (ie Hairspray.) So, we'll see.

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There you have it, I could go on and on, and I suppose this blog would get rather boring, especially without me giving a complete play synopsis in order to say anything about it, so from now on, i'll try to make these shorter. I just don't want to forget a moment of this. But, I want you guys to enjoy reading just much as I want to write down every single little thing I did, so I'll make a bit of a comprise. It's super late, I'm super exhausted, and super excited for what tomorrow will bring!

Miss you guys, and wish you all could be here seeing all this,

Becca

With tons of history comes...old buildings.

2009-06-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how crazy the actual process of getting to London is. You don't even really think it. You just say: "Two planes. Gatwick Express. Taxi." Simple.

False. I AM EXHAUSTED. And used to having to follow my parents around when we travel got me spoiled. Getting here...was intense.

The best part of the journey, however, was probably finding out I had been upgraded to first class on my flight to London Gatwick. Any other first class, not that big of a deal. But first class on an eight hour flight to London... BIG DEAL. And we regular economy class sitting citizens have no idea such things that are being hidden from us in the first class. So I will relate them to you to let it all be known:

-Chair moves every way. not just into a bed. EVERY way. move this move that, you feel like you're on a slow moving Disney ride.

-You have two lights, one in the ceiling and an adjustable one behind your head

-Before take off you receive your choice of orange juice or champagne; I alas had neither

-you also receive a FULL size pillow and blanket, and the normal travel kit everyone else gets

-Once you are in the air you get your first hot, wet towel, to wipe your hands and face with

-you have 3.5 feet of space in front of you (thereabouts)

-You are brought not a bag of overly salted peanuts, but a glass bowl of assorted boiled nuts...warm.

-Alcoholic beverages...lots. A luxury I could not participate in.

-Soda in glass cups (not the dumb plastic ones)

-a 3 course meal 1st course, soup, salada, shrimp cocktail with avocados, and three choices of bread, two choices of salad dressing, a TABLE CLOTH for your tray table, 2 forks, 3 knives, 1 spoon, personal salt and pepper shakers, and butter for bread

-main course, is sorta the typical

-dessert: your choice of assorted cheeses or ice cream sundae. You can probably guess what I had.

-cool tv

-we have our own private potty so dirty economy class people don't mess around in it.

-they give you Dasani water bottles every three seconds

-oh and 2nd hot, wet towel much later on in flight

Yes, that was my experience. The only downsides: Left leg was numb so I didn't sleep, food wasn't all that great, and the guy I was sitting next to slept the whole time with his chair in bed mode so I couldn't climb over him to go to the bathroom! BAD.

Blah blah, got to Victoria Station, got a nice taxi guy, and saw a whole bunch of buildings that I said to myself (I remember those PERFECTLY, but not what they are / were for) haha. hopefully we'll do some good site seeing because classes and shows.

I miss being able to text or call people whenever I wanted. You have no idea how often you look at your cell phone, until you realize you're looking constantly at a phone you can do nothing with. not cool.

We got to Langton Close, which is our residence hall on a street off of Gray's Inn Road. It, itself, is nothing to talk about. But definitely makes my dorm room back at Duke look like the Grand Floridian Hotel. It still blows my mind how...different England is. I sorta expect them to be up to standards with us, but these buildings are SO OLD (well, our buildings can't compete with hundreds of years). It says something outside our residence hall about how it used to be a sort of hospital (just with nurses I think), I can't remember the date, I'll go look at it again. The wall papers peeling, my closet is teeeny, and there's a sink in my room. no air conditioning. toilets down the hall you have to crank a couple times to get to flush, and no wireless internet. Definitely a reality check for how easy we have in the US. I try to not take things for granted, but even I sometimes forget.

Don't get me wrong though, it's fine for a bunch of college kids. But it definitely made me miss my bedroom. still does. the bed is clean at least.

Charles Dickens lived in a flat not too far from here, I dunno how long ago though. I'll try to go back over there too.

I talked to a girl from Italy today! She's staying at Langton Close and taking class to learn how to speak English, because no one she knows in Italy knows how to speak it. It was really cool! She talked to me, and sometimes used a dictionary and we talked for awhile waiting for the guy who could let us into our rooms to show up. She's working on a film critic magazine that's going to be presented at some festival in the fall in Italy; she showed me some of the stuff she'd been working on, was frustrated I didn't know any of these amazing producers she talked about in some of the articles, and we had a good time just talking. The other kids just talked to each other while we waited, but she was all alone, so I was glad I tried to talk to her. It's so interesting to hear how different people's lives can be just because they were born in a different country.

We walked to this pretty cool shopping center, with shops, a grocery store, a cosmetics store, and a bunch of restaurants, starbucks, too (theyre everywhere [starbucks], and Pret a Manger). It's a pretty cool little area, I wish I could go shopping there. All these little boutiques with cute clothes; maybe my one item will come from there.

And even though right now it's 1 pound is a 1.68 dollars; their prices are still exactly what they would be in dollars in the US! it makes me so mad! I got a smoothie for 3.45 pounds at a cute little restaurant we wen to for lunch called Giraffe, and was like dude, this is what I would pay in the US ($3.45). ...frustrating. food is very expensive.

I got from the grocery store waters, chips and salsa, granola bars, and carrots. sounds like a good diet, huh. It's close though so I can go back whenever. It's just hard to pick out food without having all your favorite brands right there; hard to know which is the best brand that everyone buys. I need hangers.

I'm SO TIRED.

Tomorrow, I start class at 10:45. Professor Clum is taking us on a tour of the "center of London" he said, and then we're seeing "A Little Night Music" by Stephen Sondheim.

It was, overall, a pretty rough first day, but I'm excited to get this show on the road (buh dun ch) tomorrow.

More when I can...

Love

Becca

"I have sailed the world, beheld its wonders...

2009-06-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

...but there's no place like... London."

(Sweeney Todd)

I'm off to the UK tomorrow (Saturday June 27, 2009) to study theater (all types) for the rest of the summer. I'll be taking two theater courses (acting, reading and studying theater), and will be seeing shows on average 5 nights a week. ...I'm VERY excited, to say the least!

To get in touch with me:

-Read and Comment this, I would love to hear from everyone!

-Email me: rebecca.stone@duke.edu

-Text me: send a text to 011447766665082

-Call and leave me a voicemail: Dial my usual number (352)266-5104 . This will be the most unreliable because it'll cost me around $2.00/min to talk on the phone.

OKAY!

The purpose of this blog is two-fold. First, I want to be able to keep in touch with friends and family (ie. YOU!) and let all of you know what I'm doing/up to. Second, this is for me. Spending six weeks in a theater-packed region is going to be incredible, and I don't want to forget a moment. I'll be learning about all different types of acting/performing, and styles of playwriting (dramas, musicals, operas, ballets), and I'll also be working with a lot of experienced directors/producers on vocal/shakespeare/acting/etc performance. This is the best place I can think of to document all of that. I hope to be able to keep up with this often so I remember each play we study and what I learn from it and in London.

Finally, I am SO grateful to be able to spend this time studying, traveling, and learning. I hope I come out a person that has become more culturally aware and more passionate and educated about an ancient old art form: el teatro.

With Love,

Becca

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else."

-Tom Stoppard (author of Arcadia, and more)