So, I think this will most likely be my last post before I get back to Texas on Saturday. It's about noon on Thursday right now (just FYI, since I bet the time stamp on this thing is totally wrong right now) and I'm at the Shakespeare Institute Library. I just finished printing out my final paper, which I personally think is a pretty damn good paper. This worries me, since normally I think my papers are trash and Dr. C loves them. Now that I have actually written something I am really proud of I'm afraid she'll hate it. Haha. At any rate, I finished my paper before midnight last night and was really proud of myself for not procrastinating until the very last minute, as usual.
We have our scene showcase this afternoon, which hopefully will go well. I feel more or less prepared, and I'll just be happy to get it over with. Then tonight as our final outing we're seeing a production of Julius Caesar. I can't believe it is already my last night in Stratford. In some ways it's already so familiar that I feel like I've been living here much longer than three weeks, but in other ways I can't believe the trip is already over. I am hoping we'll all go out tonight together after the show, just a final hurrah sort of thing. Then tomorrow most of us are taking the 6:45 AM train to London (ugh!). We figured we'd go really early since a few people actually have flights to catch tomorrow and the rest of us want to spend a full day in London. Then a bunch of us are spending the night in a hotel near Heathrow and on Saturday morning at 8:30 I'll catch my plane home. I'm going to be so exhausted by the time I get home, but I'm okay with that. I'm unemployed at the moment since my job only exists during the school year, and will definitely be giving myself a few days to rest before starting the job hunt again.
Anyway, there's not a whole lot to say about the past couple of days. I spent most of my free time writing my paper. On Tuesday night we saw that production of R&J that I talked about, and it was definitely interesting. Visually it was beautiful, I think it was maybe my favorite lighting designs ever of all time. Conceptually, it didn't totally work. I did actually like the tap dance fighting (although some people in the group HATED it) but they did the show as a play-within-a-play and we were supposed to believe that this was feuding Sicilian mob families putting on the play of Romeo and Juliet as a sort of peace offering to each other...I don't know. It will definitely be a memorable production simply because it was so different, but overall it didn't work as well in practice as it must have worked in theory in the director's head. Flaws and all it was still a pretty good show. I'd say that of the 6 shows we've seen here so far, four of them were absolutely great and get an A+, Romeo and Juliet gets a B+, and Coriolanus just flat out failed. (P.S.-In our session with Jane the other day she asked what shows we'd seen and all of us bitched about how awful Coriolanus was. It was only later that Dr. C reminded us that she is the president of Friends of the Globe. Oops! The thing is, I don't feel too bad. If I were a major head honcho in something that was awful, I'd want to know what people actually thought about it so that I could improve it. Plus she seems like a pretty tough broad, so I think she can handle it).
Yesterday we had a Q&A with the assistant director of Romeo and Juliet, which was really cool for me because I'd love to do more directing and I liked talking to someone who is doing something I'd really like to do someday . She is only 26 years old. I WISH I could be ADing shows at the RSC at the age of 26. Then in the afternoon we had our final Renaissance dance class. I got to wear a period corset for a while so that we could do "bum roll lifts" as we learned the volta (I'm not even kidding, that's what the move is called). The Elizabethan corsets are surprisingly comfortable. They squeeze your ribs a bit and kind of block full breathing in your diaphragm but you can still breathe fully from your chest (which is where most people breathe anyway) and it doesn't cinch in your waist like those terrible Victorian monstrosities.
Last night we had free tickets to go to a poetry reading by Andrew Motion, the poet laureate of England. I have to admit that poetry is not really my thing. I don't dislike it. I love the sonnets and Pablo Neruda and a few other poets, but poetry on the whole is not something I study or read regularly or think about a whole lot. And I have to admit that even though he's the poet laureate I didn't know he existed until yesterday (actually, I have to admit that I don't even know who the poet laureate of the US is right now...I don't even know if I'm spelling laureate right). But the poetry reading was actually really enjoyable. He read a lot of his poetry and a bit from his autobiography and then answered questions from the audience. I only wish I hadn't had my final paper to finish writing because even though I was enjoying the reading I kept looking at the clock going, "Crap, it's already 9:15...how much longer is this going to be?"
So yeah. That's all I have to say. The next time you hear from me it will be when I'm back home with a cell phone I can actually use to make phone calls and my own internet connection! Yay! Can't wait to talk to you all and see what you've been up to the past three weeks.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Like Nothing on this Earth
I forget when I last updated. I think it was yesterday morning, but the past few days have gone by so fast that everything is starting to blur together. And the connection on this computer sucks again today, so I hope this thing posts at all.
I’m having a really hard time remembering what I did yesterday during the day…I just asked Liz and she said it’s ‘cause we did nothing, but I know we must have done things ‘cause I felt really busy. Oh yeah, I did end up going to the birthplace library and finishing up my research, and then I spent a lot of time yesterday organizing and outlining my whole paper. And then this morning we had part of the morning off so I managed to write the entire introduction, which is always the hardest part for me. Now it should be easy to finish the rest of the paper by Thursday (I think…I hope…)
We also had a couple of classes yesterday. We had a Q&A session about Much Ado About Nothing with one of the actresses from the company, which was interesting, and then we had our final RSC voice class in the afternoon. I really enjoy the voice classes much more than I thought I would. In yesterday’s we did a bunch of singing. We learned a Hebrew song, an African song, and something in another language that might have been like, Romanian (except that I don’t think that’s actually a language, is it?). Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
Yesterday evening was the best part of the day. After Holy Trinity Church had closed to the public for the day Paul took us on a private tour. I really like Paul, he is the cutest man on the planet, seriously. I can’t even explain it. He looks sort of like a turtle in funny little red-framed glasses and he has cute little hand gestures and when he speaks it sounds like everything he is saying is incredibly important even if he’s just describing the way to the loo. Plus he’s incredibly smart, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, we got a private tour of Holy Trinity. It was incredible, we learned so much about the history of the church and different things about Shakespeare’s tomb and monument and the tombs of his family members. The amount of history in a place like that is almost stifling somehow. Does that make sense? The best part was that Paul let us take pictures and even opened up the railing on the altar and let us walk right up to Shakespeare’s grave! I now have a picture of me sitting on the altar beside his epitaph. Normally you aren’t allowed to go up to the altar, much less take a picture, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I did feel like it was sort of disrespectful somehow, but I also wasn’t about to miss that chance!
Anyway, today has been sort of a stressful day for me because it has been nothing but acting. In our group rehearsals we’d never gotten around to rehearsing our monologues so this morning I had a short private rehearsal and then this afternoon we had a scene run thru and then after that we had the second half of our master class with Jane Lapotaire. All of my rehearsals actually went well, and I enjoyed the master class mainly because I managed to get out of actually having to perform today since time was up before she could get around to me. I was very happy about that, I’d much rather watch the acting classes than participate, that just hasn’t been an option so far. Jane is such a character. She showed up today with a big blue bag with “Tony Awards” emblazoned across the front and said, “I thought I would bring this to impress you Americans,” and then went on to explain how it was her gift bag when she won the Tony award. And she was totally joking about it like, “Oh, the Tony, bah” as if we all know that the Tony award is no big deal at all whatsoever. She also loves to mention famous people and then say, “Oh, oops, there goes a name!” and pantomime dropping it to the floor; literal name-dropping. I wish I could accurately describe what it’s like to be around her, because she really is funny as hell. Just the things she says to people make me laugh. She’s really abrasive but I don’t think she means to be. It’s sort of like being around my grandfather, actually. I’m trying to think of examples of things that she said and did that would come across well in writing, and of course now that I’m under pressure to churn this out I’m not coming up with anything good. At any rate, she’s incredibly entertaining and I wish I could somehow have her around as a friend to be snarky with, but damn, watching her pick performances apart makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind wants to be an actor and take all that criticism.
Anyway, tonight we’re seeing a production of Romeo and Juliet that is supposed to be interesting. I’ve never actually seen R&J performed on stage (really!) so I’m excited. I hear the fights are actually dance sequences. It’s supposed to be really different and it’s been met with mixed reviews so it will be interesting to see it for myself.
I’ll leave you with a couple of stories that I at least found entertaining (and maybe you will, too. Or maybe you won’t but I’m typing them anyway, suckers!). Liz and I have developed this sort of ongoing comedy routine. We have a similar sense of humor so we can play off each other for quite a while once one of us gets started. We even do it when we’re barely awake. Case in point: This morning at about 6 a.m. there was the most ungodly noise going on outside our window. To quote Paul, “It sounded like nothing on earth”. It went on for about five minutes and finally I realized that Liz was awake and hearing it, too, so I groaned, “What IS that?” and her response was, “The worst sound in the world to wake up to,” and I said, “It’s like a strangling elephant,” and Liz laughed and I laughed and we both fell back asleep and it wasn’t until just now that either of us remembered that the conversation even happened. And I know it doesn’t sound at all funny here, but something about the tone of voice made it hilarious earlier. [Incidentally, I think it was actually a garbage truck and not a strangling elephant, but who knows]
And last night we were all delirious. We’d all been working on papers for a while and Amanda got to looking at the pictures she and Liz have taken and there’s this great one Liz took out the window of the bus on Friday as we zoomed past Big Ben. Alex was like, “You took that from the bus?” and Liz goes, “Yeah! I was like ‘BIG BEN! Whoosh!’” And she screamed “BIG BEN!” at the top of her lungs. So now her new thing is randomly surprising me with unexpected shouts of, “BIG BEN!” Which is only fair, since I like to surprise her with random outbursts of the Snake Dance.
Jenn B. also has her own equivalent of the Snake Dance. I don’t even know how to describe it, really. She has these pants with the biggest crotch known to man, and so she can pull the pants all the way up and over her chest if she hunches down enough. So to make me laugh she likes to do that and make this face and I swear she looks like Mr. Toad. So she has been doing this for days now to make me laugh when we’re hanging out in her room, but as of last night no one else other than Mindy had seen it yet. Last night I went down to her room to get a spoon to eat my Chinese takeout soup and I knocked on her door and she said, “Who’s there?” and I told her it was me so she opened the door in her “outfit” and I didn’t notice immediately and then at that exact moment the other Jen happened to walk out of her room and over to Jenn’s to give her a soda she had wanted, and so the exact scene went something like this:
Me: [knocking]
Jenn: Who’s there?
Me: Ashley
Jenn: Oh, okay! [Opens door wearing pants pulled up over her chest, smirk on her face]
Me: Do you have a spoo…
Jen F: [stares at Jenn B. in shock] Okay…[sets down Coke, turns on her heel and quickly closes herself back in her own room]
Jenn B. and I died. The timing was just way too perfect. I know, I know, you had to be here for it to be funny at all, but I just love when moments that would have been funny in the first place are made all the more hilarious when they’re witnessed by innocent bystanders.
Alright, time is up. I gotta post this and get out of here. Talk to you later! Only three more days until I’m home!
I’m having a really hard time remembering what I did yesterday during the day…I just asked Liz and she said it’s ‘cause we did nothing, but I know we must have done things ‘cause I felt really busy. Oh yeah, I did end up going to the birthplace library and finishing up my research, and then I spent a lot of time yesterday organizing and outlining my whole paper. And then this morning we had part of the morning off so I managed to write the entire introduction, which is always the hardest part for me. Now it should be easy to finish the rest of the paper by Thursday (I think…I hope…)
We also had a couple of classes yesterday. We had a Q&A session about Much Ado About Nothing with one of the actresses from the company, which was interesting, and then we had our final RSC voice class in the afternoon. I really enjoy the voice classes much more than I thought I would. In yesterday’s we did a bunch of singing. We learned a Hebrew song, an African song, and something in another language that might have been like, Romanian (except that I don’t think that’s actually a language, is it?). Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
Yesterday evening was the best part of the day. After Holy Trinity Church had closed to the public for the day Paul took us on a private tour. I really like Paul, he is the cutest man on the planet, seriously. I can’t even explain it. He looks sort of like a turtle in funny little red-framed glasses and he has cute little hand gestures and when he speaks it sounds like everything he is saying is incredibly important even if he’s just describing the way to the loo. Plus he’s incredibly smart, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, we got a private tour of Holy Trinity. It was incredible, we learned so much about the history of the church and different things about Shakespeare’s tomb and monument and the tombs of his family members. The amount of history in a place like that is almost stifling somehow. Does that make sense? The best part was that Paul let us take pictures and even opened up the railing on the altar and let us walk right up to Shakespeare’s grave! I now have a picture of me sitting on the altar beside his epitaph. Normally you aren’t allowed to go up to the altar, much less take a picture, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I did feel like it was sort of disrespectful somehow, but I also wasn’t about to miss that chance!
Anyway, today has been sort of a stressful day for me because it has been nothing but acting. In our group rehearsals we’d never gotten around to rehearsing our monologues so this morning I had a short private rehearsal and then this afternoon we had a scene run thru and then after that we had the second half of our master class with Jane Lapotaire. All of my rehearsals actually went well, and I enjoyed the master class mainly because I managed to get out of actually having to perform today since time was up before she could get around to me. I was very happy about that, I’d much rather watch the acting classes than participate, that just hasn’t been an option so far. Jane is such a character. She showed up today with a big blue bag with “Tony Awards” emblazoned across the front and said, “I thought I would bring this to impress you Americans,” and then went on to explain how it was her gift bag when she won the Tony award. And she was totally joking about it like, “Oh, the Tony, bah” as if we all know that the Tony award is no big deal at all whatsoever. She also loves to mention famous people and then say, “Oh, oops, there goes a name!” and pantomime dropping it to the floor; literal name-dropping. I wish I could accurately describe what it’s like to be around her, because she really is funny as hell. Just the things she says to people make me laugh. She’s really abrasive but I don’t think she means to be. It’s sort of like being around my grandfather, actually. I’m trying to think of examples of things that she said and did that would come across well in writing, and of course now that I’m under pressure to churn this out I’m not coming up with anything good. At any rate, she’s incredibly entertaining and I wish I could somehow have her around as a friend to be snarky with, but damn, watching her pick performances apart makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind wants to be an actor and take all that criticism.
Anyway, tonight we’re seeing a production of Romeo and Juliet that is supposed to be interesting. I’ve never actually seen R&J performed on stage (really!) so I’m excited. I hear the fights are actually dance sequences. It’s supposed to be really different and it’s been met with mixed reviews so it will be interesting to see it for myself.
I’ll leave you with a couple of stories that I at least found entertaining (and maybe you will, too. Or maybe you won’t but I’m typing them anyway, suckers!). Liz and I have developed this sort of ongoing comedy routine. We have a similar sense of humor so we can play off each other for quite a while once one of us gets started. We even do it when we’re barely awake. Case in point: This morning at about 6 a.m. there was the most ungodly noise going on outside our window. To quote Paul, “It sounded like nothing on earth”. It went on for about five minutes and finally I realized that Liz was awake and hearing it, too, so I groaned, “What IS that?” and her response was, “The worst sound in the world to wake up to,” and I said, “It’s like a strangling elephant,” and Liz laughed and I laughed and we both fell back asleep and it wasn’t until just now that either of us remembered that the conversation even happened. And I know it doesn’t sound at all funny here, but something about the tone of voice made it hilarious earlier. [Incidentally, I think it was actually a garbage truck and not a strangling elephant, but who knows]
And last night we were all delirious. We’d all been working on papers for a while and Amanda got to looking at the pictures she and Liz have taken and there’s this great one Liz took out the window of the bus on Friday as we zoomed past Big Ben. Alex was like, “You took that from the bus?” and Liz goes, “Yeah! I was like ‘BIG BEN! Whoosh!’” And she screamed “BIG BEN!” at the top of her lungs. So now her new thing is randomly surprising me with unexpected shouts of, “BIG BEN!” Which is only fair, since I like to surprise her with random outbursts of the Snake Dance.
Jenn B. also has her own equivalent of the Snake Dance. I don’t even know how to describe it, really. She has these pants with the biggest crotch known to man, and so she can pull the pants all the way up and over her chest if she hunches down enough. So to make me laugh she likes to do that and make this face and I swear she looks like Mr. Toad. So she has been doing this for days now to make me laugh when we’re hanging out in her room, but as of last night no one else other than Mindy had seen it yet. Last night I went down to her room to get a spoon to eat my Chinese takeout soup and I knocked on her door and she said, “Who’s there?” and I told her it was me so she opened the door in her “outfit” and I didn’t notice immediately and then at that exact moment the other Jen happened to walk out of her room and over to Jenn’s to give her a soda she had wanted, and so the exact scene went something like this:
Me: [knocking]
Jenn: Who’s there?
Me: Ashley
Jenn: Oh, okay! [Opens door wearing pants pulled up over her chest, smirk on her face]
Me: Do you have a spoo…
Jen F: [stares at Jenn B. in shock] Okay…[sets down Coke, turns on her heel and quickly closes herself back in her own room]
Jenn B. and I died. The timing was just way too perfect. I know, I know, you had to be here for it to be funny at all, but I just love when moments that would have been funny in the first place are made all the more hilarious when they’re witnessed by innocent bystanders.
Alright, time is up. I gotta post this and get out of here. Talk to you later! Only three more days until I’m home!
Monday, June 26, 2006
Don't Fight for Me, Argentina
So I was going to go to the actual research library right now thinking that it opens at 9:30 AM, but it turns out it doesn't open until 10:00. So I'm killing half an hour here in the public library instead and I figured I'd blog real quick right now so that later on this afternoon I can do "productive" things like rehearsal and paper writing. Everyone is really starting to freak out about the amount of work we have to finish this week but honestly, I'm not all that worried about it. I'm feeling confident that I'm going to get everything done with no problems. I am the queen of procrastination in Texas and I always get things done there, so why should it be any different here?
Anyway, my weekend was good. Saturday night ended up being completely ridiculous. It was Amanda's birthday yesterday, so we celebrated on Saturday night by going out to this club called Bureau. We had to be at the club before 10:00 so that we only had to pay a three pound cover charge, so Alex Meh decided that we needed to start the pre-party at like, 5:00 in the afternoon. So at first it was just the third floor crew (the five of us are probably the bad influence of the group, which isn't saying much at all considering prior to Saturday night the worst any of us had done was Alex was five minutes late to a class one day...because he was in the library printing a paper. Oh yeah, we are TROUBLE). Then after awhile John, Jen, and Chris came upstairs and joined us. Between the eight of us we finished off a bottle of Courvessier (I never know how to spell that and I'm too lazy to look it up), a bottle of mead that Alex had bought at the Tower of London, and two 2 litre bottles of Strongbow. They sell beer in 2 litre plastic soda bottles at the convenience stores here. It's kind of exciting. So anyway, by the time we even got to the club most of us were already buzzing, and then there were a couple of rounds of shots and these bottled vodka energy drinks that seemed like a great idea at the time but in all actuality are the devil. We ended up having a great time at the club. All ten of us went and were hanging out together dancing and laughing, and it was so much fun to have the whole group together like that. Lots of ridiculous things ended up happening, and I'm just gonna leave it at that. Nothing regretable or bad happened, but I definitely did a couple of things I would not have done had I been totally sober. Let's just put it this way: Amanda and Liz took over 250 pictures on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning we deleted about a hundred of them as they were too incriminating. Haha. Actually, that makes it sound worse than it was. It wasn't that bad, really, although my first thought when I woke up on Sunday morning was basically, "Wow. Why did last night exist?!" It was fun, though. After all, it wouldn't be a trip to England without one group drunk crazy night! Oh, and in case you were curious about the title, Argentina had played in the football game on Saturday night and as we were all leaving the club at 2 a.m. these three drunk British men were standing outside singing what they called their "anti-Argentina song" , which apparently was just singing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" loudly and off-key and replacing the word "cry" with the word "fight".
Anyway, yesterday was a very low key day. I did some shopping in the morning. I got two more really cute shirts at H&M and then I finally broke down and bought this basset hound sculpture that I've been staring at in a shop window for two weeks now. It was a completely impractical purchase as it is a good-sized fairly heavy stone sculpture now packed in a 2X2 box with a bunch of styrofoam and I have to figure out how I'm going to get it on the plane, but I couldn't resist it. It's a very cool sort of artsy sculpture and the artist that makes them lives right here in Warwickshire so it's not like I could get it anywhere else. And hey, I thought about it for two entire weeks before buying it, so it definitely wasn't just a dumb impulse purchase. I already know exactly where I'm putting it in my apartment and everything!
Anyway, we watched the England game at the pub yesterday afternoon and continued celebrating Amanda's birthday with this absolutely disgusting cake that Liz bought at Morrison's. It was decorated with the soccer players' faces. I took a great picture of Liz eating Wayne Rooney's head.
Anyway, my time is almost up here and I have to go hit the Shakespeare library to finish up my research so that I can hopefully start writing my paper tonight.
Anyway, my weekend was good. Saturday night ended up being completely ridiculous. It was Amanda's birthday yesterday, so we celebrated on Saturday night by going out to this club called Bureau. We had to be at the club before 10:00 so that we only had to pay a three pound cover charge, so Alex Meh decided that we needed to start the pre-party at like, 5:00 in the afternoon. So at first it was just the third floor crew (the five of us are probably the bad influence of the group, which isn't saying much at all considering prior to Saturday night the worst any of us had done was Alex was five minutes late to a class one day...because he was in the library printing a paper. Oh yeah, we are TROUBLE). Then after awhile John, Jen, and Chris came upstairs and joined us. Between the eight of us we finished off a bottle of Courvessier (I never know how to spell that and I'm too lazy to look it up), a bottle of mead that Alex had bought at the Tower of London, and two 2 litre bottles of Strongbow. They sell beer in 2 litre plastic soda bottles at the convenience stores here. It's kind of exciting. So anyway, by the time we even got to the club most of us were already buzzing, and then there were a couple of rounds of shots and these bottled vodka energy drinks that seemed like a great idea at the time but in all actuality are the devil. We ended up having a great time at the club. All ten of us went and were hanging out together dancing and laughing, and it was so much fun to have the whole group together like that. Lots of ridiculous things ended up happening, and I'm just gonna leave it at that. Nothing regretable or bad happened, but I definitely did a couple of things I would not have done had I been totally sober. Let's just put it this way: Amanda and Liz took over 250 pictures on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning we deleted about a hundred of them as they were too incriminating. Haha. Actually, that makes it sound worse than it was. It wasn't that bad, really, although my first thought when I woke up on Sunday morning was basically, "Wow. Why did last night exist?!" It was fun, though. After all, it wouldn't be a trip to England without one group drunk crazy night! Oh, and in case you were curious about the title, Argentina had played in the football game on Saturday night and as we were all leaving the club at 2 a.m. these three drunk British men were standing outside singing what they called their "anti-Argentina song" , which apparently was just singing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" loudly and off-key and replacing the word "cry" with the word "fight".
Anyway, yesterday was a very low key day. I did some shopping in the morning. I got two more really cute shirts at H&M and then I finally broke down and bought this basset hound sculpture that I've been staring at in a shop window for two weeks now. It was a completely impractical purchase as it is a good-sized fairly heavy stone sculpture now packed in a 2X2 box with a bunch of styrofoam and I have to figure out how I'm going to get it on the plane, but I couldn't resist it. It's a very cool sort of artsy sculpture and the artist that makes them lives right here in Warwickshire so it's not like I could get it anywhere else. And hey, I thought about it for two entire weeks before buying it, so it definitely wasn't just a dumb impulse purchase. I already know exactly where I'm putting it in my apartment and everything!
Anyway, we watched the England game at the pub yesterday afternoon and continued celebrating Amanda's birthday with this absolutely disgusting cake that Liz bought at Morrison's. It was decorated with the soccer players' faces. I took a great picture of Liz eating Wayne Rooney's head.
Anyway, my time is almost up here and I have to go hit the Shakespeare library to finish up my research so that I can hopefully start writing my paper tonight.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
London, Titus, Coriolanus, Etc.
I feel like I haven't posted a blog in ages even though I know I only skipped posting yesterday. I can't believe how fast time is going by now. The first week we were here everything went really slowly, but then the pace picked up a lot and now in just a week I'll be back in Texas!
I'm sort of glad about getting back to Texas, I guess. This trip has been go, go, go, all the time so it will be nice to get back to sleeping past 8:00 in the morning and not having something scheduled every second of almost every day. And of course I miss my sister and my "boys". But other than those things I really feel like I could stay here forever. The other people I'm missing are people I miss all the time anyway (my parents, Mike, Matthew, Kymberli, Jenny, etc., etc.) and the only difference between missing them here and missing them in Texas is that at least in Texas there's AIM and it's easy and cheap to make a phone call. So really, if I could just come up with a cheaper way to make international phone calls and if I had an internet connection in my room at the B&B, I think I could quite happily stay here indefinitely. I love England, I really do.
The only person I really miss from back home is Mandi. Her father was very sick when I left town so I've been worrying about her a lot and hoping he is doing okay. Amanda is here with me, and other than that I like plenty of people back at school but there's no one I am close enough to to really miss, you know? I have friends at school, don't get me wrong, they're just not very close friends. The funny thing is, I have gotten pretty tight with some of the people I am traveling with here. For that reason alone I'm glad I went on this trip. Before we came here I really only knew Amanda, but it's amazing how fast you get to know people when you're traveling with them and living together and seeing each other pretty much all day every day. So now I'll go back to Texas and miss this little group we have here now, I think.
Anyway, I have several things to say. First of all, Renaissance dancing is PAINFUL. Oh, the dancing itself wasn't painful. The dancing was a lot of fun. But most of it is done up on your toes and there is a lot of jumping around and it is just very physical. After two hours of dancing my calves were trembling, and now for the past two days my calves have been aching. I hopped out of bed this morning and then had to stand perfectly still for a minute just to let my calves stretch out to normal standing position because they're so tight. Liz was still sitting in bed and she laughed at me and said, "You can walk," but seriously, I barely could. Still, I had fun with the dancing...although our dance teacher is one of those very European women who doesn't shave or wash her clothes (apparently) so that was, um, gross. But yeah, dance class was fun.
On Thursday night we saw the Ninagawa Company's production of Titus Andronicus and it was incredible. It was completely stylized and unlike anything I have ever seen before in my life. I can't even think of words to describe it, really, and I know you all don't paricularly care anyway, but wow. Definitely a very memorable theatre experience. And I was sitting right in the very front row on the aisle, which made it incredibly intense. Before the show the actors warmed up and got into costume on stage and several of them said good evening to me or acknowledged me in some way, and then during the show itself they were doing a lot of acting in the aisle or at the foot of the stage so I kept having actors with massive Japanese swords literally inches away from my face. John was sitting next to me, and at intermission we both just kind of stared at each other wide-eyed and I said, "Did you know we were going to be in Titus Andronicus tonight?" The whole thing was just very intense, that's the only way I can describe it. And it was a completely different culture experience, too. I felt like I was part of something very special and sacred, totally different than Western theatre. I loved it.
Yesterday we spent the day in London. Ah, London. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to drive there from here and we had a big bus. Dr. C's daughter sat with me at the back of the bus and I kept her entertained playing hangman and drawing pictures for most of the drive. Dr. C kept offering to take her off my hands, but I was actually enjoying being with her. It has been a long time since I've had to entertain a little kid, and I actually kind of miss it. She's very sweet, too, and really smart (which is not surprising, considering her mother). We spent the afternoon at the Tower of London. Amanda and I hung out together and took one of the yeoman tours and then explored the various towers. I had time to do the whole Tower experience in depth this time (I've been there before, but the last time was kind of rushed). We explored the chapel where Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard and Thomas More are burried, saw the crown jewels, and went to the armory. My favorite thing was Henry VIII's armor. Judging by his armor, the man really was HUGE (both tall and fat) even compared to today's standards.
Last night we saw Coriolanus at The Globe. Just being in the Globe is always a cool experience, but the show was awful. Oh well, we're seeing seven shows here and we didn't hit a dud until our fifth one. That's pretty good, actually. That's now three (or four?) shows I've seen at The Globe and all of them have been terrible. It's like watching dinner theatre at a community theatre in like, Nebraska. Seriously. Maybe slightly better than that, but not much. It's theatre for tourists and I hate to be pretentious but I seriously believe that even though they know their audience is not theatre people they shouldn't dumb the show down. Or make it into Coriolanus the Comedy!, which is what they tried to do. And obviously it didn't work. The Globe is not doing anything that is going to make non-theatre people fall in love with Shakespeare, that's for sure. I think I could take my dad (who has absolutely no interest in theatre) to every show we've seen here in Stratford so far and he would enjoy it (maybe not Antony and Cleo since that was more traditional, but the other three for sure). The Globe needs to be doing more shows like that. Maintaining historical accuracy doesn't mean it needs to be boring. Because trust me, if any of Shakespeare's shows were actually performed like that in the original Globe, he would be remembered as a very mediocre playwright at best.
Alright, off my soap box.
Today we have the day off except for an hour and a half rehearsal for our scenes, which I've already been to. It went pretty well today. We were originally going to try to go somewhere tomorrow, but now I think we might just stay here for the rest of the weekend. We all need to work on our big papers that are due next week since we just don't have much time to work next week. Plus I'm spending the night in London on Friday anyway, and I figure since we have to check out of our B&B at 8:00 on Friday morning we might as well just go to London early and spend the day there. We're thinking of maybe going to Westminster or the Tate or something like that. We'll see.
I'm sort of glad about getting back to Texas, I guess. This trip has been go, go, go, all the time so it will be nice to get back to sleeping past 8:00 in the morning and not having something scheduled every second of almost every day. And of course I miss my sister and my "boys". But other than those things I really feel like I could stay here forever. The other people I'm missing are people I miss all the time anyway (my parents, Mike, Matthew, Kymberli, Jenny, etc., etc.) and the only difference between missing them here and missing them in Texas is that at least in Texas there's AIM and it's easy and cheap to make a phone call. So really, if I could just come up with a cheaper way to make international phone calls and if I had an internet connection in my room at the B&B, I think I could quite happily stay here indefinitely. I love England, I really do.
The only person I really miss from back home is Mandi. Her father was very sick when I left town so I've been worrying about her a lot and hoping he is doing okay. Amanda is here with me, and other than that I like plenty of people back at school but there's no one I am close enough to to really miss, you know? I have friends at school, don't get me wrong, they're just not very close friends. The funny thing is, I have gotten pretty tight with some of the people I am traveling with here. For that reason alone I'm glad I went on this trip. Before we came here I really only knew Amanda, but it's amazing how fast you get to know people when you're traveling with them and living together and seeing each other pretty much all day every day. So now I'll go back to Texas and miss this little group we have here now, I think.
Anyway, I have several things to say. First of all, Renaissance dancing is PAINFUL. Oh, the dancing itself wasn't painful. The dancing was a lot of fun. But most of it is done up on your toes and there is a lot of jumping around and it is just very physical. After two hours of dancing my calves were trembling, and now for the past two days my calves have been aching. I hopped out of bed this morning and then had to stand perfectly still for a minute just to let my calves stretch out to normal standing position because they're so tight. Liz was still sitting in bed and she laughed at me and said, "You can walk," but seriously, I barely could. Still, I had fun with the dancing...although our dance teacher is one of those very European women who doesn't shave or wash her clothes (apparently) so that was, um, gross. But yeah, dance class was fun.
On Thursday night we saw the Ninagawa Company's production of Titus Andronicus and it was incredible. It was completely stylized and unlike anything I have ever seen before in my life. I can't even think of words to describe it, really, and I know you all don't paricularly care anyway, but wow. Definitely a very memorable theatre experience. And I was sitting right in the very front row on the aisle, which made it incredibly intense. Before the show the actors warmed up and got into costume on stage and several of them said good evening to me or acknowledged me in some way, and then during the show itself they were doing a lot of acting in the aisle or at the foot of the stage so I kept having actors with massive Japanese swords literally inches away from my face. John was sitting next to me, and at intermission we both just kind of stared at each other wide-eyed and I said, "Did you know we were going to be in Titus Andronicus tonight?" The whole thing was just very intense, that's the only way I can describe it. And it was a completely different culture experience, too. I felt like I was part of something very special and sacred, totally different than Western theatre. I loved it.
Yesterday we spent the day in London. Ah, London. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to drive there from here and we had a big bus. Dr. C's daughter sat with me at the back of the bus and I kept her entertained playing hangman and drawing pictures for most of the drive. Dr. C kept offering to take her off my hands, but I was actually enjoying being with her. It has been a long time since I've had to entertain a little kid, and I actually kind of miss it. She's very sweet, too, and really smart (which is not surprising, considering her mother). We spent the afternoon at the Tower of London. Amanda and I hung out together and took one of the yeoman tours and then explored the various towers. I had time to do the whole Tower experience in depth this time (I've been there before, but the last time was kind of rushed). We explored the chapel where Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard and Thomas More are burried, saw the crown jewels, and went to the armory. My favorite thing was Henry VIII's armor. Judging by his armor, the man really was HUGE (both tall and fat) even compared to today's standards.
Last night we saw Coriolanus at The Globe. Just being in the Globe is always a cool experience, but the show was awful. Oh well, we're seeing seven shows here and we didn't hit a dud until our fifth one. That's pretty good, actually. That's now three (or four?) shows I've seen at The Globe and all of them have been terrible. It's like watching dinner theatre at a community theatre in like, Nebraska. Seriously. Maybe slightly better than that, but not much. It's theatre for tourists and I hate to be pretentious but I seriously believe that even though they know their audience is not theatre people they shouldn't dumb the show down. Or make it into Coriolanus the Comedy!, which is what they tried to do. And obviously it didn't work. The Globe is not doing anything that is going to make non-theatre people fall in love with Shakespeare, that's for sure. I think I could take my dad (who has absolutely no interest in theatre) to every show we've seen here in Stratford so far and he would enjoy it (maybe not Antony and Cleo since that was more traditional, but the other three for sure). The Globe needs to be doing more shows like that. Maintaining historical accuracy doesn't mean it needs to be boring. Because trust me, if any of Shakespeare's shows were actually performed like that in the original Globe, he would be remembered as a very mediocre playwright at best.
Alright, off my soap box.
Today we have the day off except for an hour and a half rehearsal for our scenes, which I've already been to. It went pretty well today. We were originally going to try to go somewhere tomorrow, but now I think we might just stay here for the rest of the weekend. We all need to work on our big papers that are due next week since we just don't have much time to work next week. Plus I'm spending the night in London on Friday anyway, and I figure since we have to check out of our B&B at 8:00 on Friday morning we might as well just go to London early and spend the day there. We're thinking of maybe going to Westminster or the Tate or something like that. We'll see.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Library Computers SUCK
Edited to add: There is another entry below this one, just in case you're not caught up. I posted one later in the day yesterday than I normally do so I didn't want that to throw anyone off. Okay? Okay.
Getting connected to the internet has been an ordeal today. We had a two hour lunch break today so Liz, the Alexes and I went to the library and tried to get online as usual, but today the internet was being so slow. Something was wrong. I was there for almost an hour and managed to connect just long enough to get on two websites. TWO. In an hour. So I didn't bother trying to post this entry there, I just copied it into a Word document, onto my flash drive, and then I saved it. And now I'm being a street urchin outside Dr. C's flat again and posting it here. Better than nothing, but still frustrating. Anyway. Moving on.
Last night we saw Much Ado About Nothing, and it was great. It was set in 1950s Cuba and the actors playing Beatrice and Benedick were really good. The guy playing Benedick was an especially good actor, and he was HOT. Actually, there have been a lot of really attractive guys in these productions. I was all about Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra the other night (he looked almost exactly like Travis Willingham only hotter, if that’s possible…I realize Kymberli is probably the only person who reads this that actually knows Travis, but that’s okay, she’ll appreciate how hot this guy was). Unfortunately, I don’t think my gaydar works nearly as well in England as it does in the states. There’s just something about young British men and their style and mannerisms that makes them more ambiguous on the whole. I’m pretty sure that both of the guys I’ve been drooling over on stage have been straight, though. I think.
After the play last night we got to take a backstage tour of The Swan and The Royal Shakespeare Theater. The tour was so cool. We got to go backstage where we could see all the costumes, sets, and props for Much Ado and the production of Titus Andronicus we’re seeing tonight. That was interesting, but the very best part was that we got to go onto the stage in both theaters! I walked around on the stage where Patrick Stewart was standing two night ago! (Incidentally, shows running in repertory is crazy and absolutely amazing to me…the stage last night looked completely different from the set that was up for Antony and Cleo the night before and they change it back and forth every day) Being on the stage in the RST was incredibly cool. Just thinking about all the people that have performed on that stage…Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, pretty much all of the great classical actors of this century…and all of the great directors who have directed in that theater, Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn…it was amazing. I know I have been saying that a lot lately, but it's true. And the thing is, they’re demolishing the interior of the RST next spring and they’re going to spend the next four years remodelling it completely. When it reopens in 2010 it’s going to be a completely different theatre space. So to get to stand there on the stage and look out on the auditorium before it is all gone forever was a great experience.
Today is another full day. We’ve been super busy this week because on top of all the plays we’re seeing (four in a row this week!) and the classes we go to every day and the library research we’re doing, we have to write critiques for each show we see and we’re supposed to be rehearsing our scenes outside of scheduled rehearsal time as well. I’m just really glad I brought my own laptop with me so I don’t have to use my one hour of library time a day to type my critiques and I can screw around on the internet instead, just like I do back home! Anyway, this morning we toured the last of the five Birthplace Trust homes. This one was Nash’s place, the home owned by Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth and her husband, next door to the ruins of New Place, the house Shakespeare bought and was living in when he died. The best thing about this place was definitely the garden. I’ll admit, a part of me at this point is like, “Oh wow, ANOTHER sixteenth century house and English garden. Haven’t we seen enough of these?” but the garden in this house was the best of the manicured gardens we’ve seen (I still love the wilder garden at Anne Hathaway’s cottage, though). This one had a thing called a knot garden which I would try to describe but there’s no point. Just wait ‘til I get home and can post to Photobucket. I’ve taken close to a hundred pictures so far, most of them of gardens and people holding pints of beer. Ha.
Later on today we have a Renaissance dance class, which I’m super excited about (that’s not sarcasm, I really am very excited about this dance class) and then tonight we’re seeing the Japanese production of Titus Andronicus, which is being hyped like crazy around here so hopefully it lives up to the hype. It’s directed by Ninagawa, who is this basically legendary Japanese director so it should be awesome. I’ll let you all know how it was tomorrow before I go to London or (more likely) later this weekend. But now it’s lunchtime.
P.S.-I feel the need to inform everyone that last night Liz and I were watching the evening news on our fuzzy, fuzzy TV as we got ready to go to the show and Liz suddenly laughed and said, “His name is Sex!” I turned to look at the TV, and across the bottom of the screen it said “Sex Offenders”. It was definitely the title of the story and not the reporters name at all. It made me laugh so hard at the time and now we keep joking about “Our reporter in the field, Sex Offender!” and saying things like “Tell us, how are things looking out there, Sex?” For some reason this never gets old. Also, last night I developed a little move I like to call the Snake Dance. If you’re lucky I might just show it to you when I get back to the states. Oh yes.
Getting connected to the internet has been an ordeal today. We had a two hour lunch break today so Liz, the Alexes and I went to the library and tried to get online as usual, but today the internet was being so slow. Something was wrong. I was there for almost an hour and managed to connect just long enough to get on two websites. TWO. In an hour. So I didn't bother trying to post this entry there, I just copied it into a Word document, onto my flash drive, and then I saved it. And now I'm being a street urchin outside Dr. C's flat again and posting it here. Better than nothing, but still frustrating. Anyway. Moving on.
Last night we saw Much Ado About Nothing, and it was great. It was set in 1950s Cuba and the actors playing Beatrice and Benedick were really good. The guy playing Benedick was an especially good actor, and he was HOT. Actually, there have been a lot of really attractive guys in these productions. I was all about Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra the other night (he looked almost exactly like Travis Willingham only hotter, if that’s possible…I realize Kymberli is probably the only person who reads this that actually knows Travis, but that’s okay, she’ll appreciate how hot this guy was). Unfortunately, I don’t think my gaydar works nearly as well in England as it does in the states. There’s just something about young British men and their style and mannerisms that makes them more ambiguous on the whole. I’m pretty sure that both of the guys I’ve been drooling over on stage have been straight, though. I think.
After the play last night we got to take a backstage tour of The Swan and The Royal Shakespeare Theater. The tour was so cool. We got to go backstage where we could see all the costumes, sets, and props for Much Ado and the production of Titus Andronicus we’re seeing tonight. That was interesting, but the very best part was that we got to go onto the stage in both theaters! I walked around on the stage where Patrick Stewart was standing two night ago! (Incidentally, shows running in repertory is crazy and absolutely amazing to me…the stage last night looked completely different from the set that was up for Antony and Cleo the night before and they change it back and forth every day) Being on the stage in the RST was incredibly cool. Just thinking about all the people that have performed on that stage…Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, pretty much all of the great classical actors of this century…and all of the great directors who have directed in that theater, Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn…it was amazing. I know I have been saying that a lot lately, but it's true. And the thing is, they’re demolishing the interior of the RST next spring and they’re going to spend the next four years remodelling it completely. When it reopens in 2010 it’s going to be a completely different theatre space. So to get to stand there on the stage and look out on the auditorium before it is all gone forever was a great experience.
Today is another full day. We’ve been super busy this week because on top of all the plays we’re seeing (four in a row this week!) and the classes we go to every day and the library research we’re doing, we have to write critiques for each show we see and we’re supposed to be rehearsing our scenes outside of scheduled rehearsal time as well. I’m just really glad I brought my own laptop with me so I don’t have to use my one hour of library time a day to type my critiques and I can screw around on the internet instead, just like I do back home! Anyway, this morning we toured the last of the five Birthplace Trust homes. This one was Nash’s place, the home owned by Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth and her husband, next door to the ruins of New Place, the house Shakespeare bought and was living in when he died. The best thing about this place was definitely the garden. I’ll admit, a part of me at this point is like, “Oh wow, ANOTHER sixteenth century house and English garden. Haven’t we seen enough of these?” but the garden in this house was the best of the manicured gardens we’ve seen (I still love the wilder garden at Anne Hathaway’s cottage, though). This one had a thing called a knot garden which I would try to describe but there’s no point. Just wait ‘til I get home and can post to Photobucket. I’ve taken close to a hundred pictures so far, most of them of gardens and people holding pints of beer. Ha.
Later on today we have a Renaissance dance class, which I’m super excited about (that’s not sarcasm, I really am very excited about this dance class) and then tonight we’re seeing the Japanese production of Titus Andronicus, which is being hyped like crazy around here so hopefully it lives up to the hype. It’s directed by Ninagawa, who is this basically legendary Japanese director so it should be awesome. I’ll let you all know how it was tomorrow before I go to London or (more likely) later this weekend. But now it’s lunchtime.
P.S.-I feel the need to inform everyone that last night Liz and I were watching the evening news on our fuzzy, fuzzy TV as we got ready to go to the show and Liz suddenly laughed and said, “His name is Sex!” I turned to look at the TV, and across the bottom of the screen it said “Sex Offenders”. It was definitely the title of the story and not the reporters name at all. It made me laugh so hard at the time and now we keep joking about “Our reporter in the field, Sex Offender!” and saying things like “Tell us, how are things looking out there, Sex?” For some reason this never gets old. Also, last night I developed a little move I like to call the Snake Dance. If you’re lucky I might just show it to you when I get back to the states. Oh yes.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Happy Midsummer!
Did you know the summer solstice is actually sort of a holiday here? Well, it is. And have I told you that it stays light here until after 10:00 every night? Well, it does. And that's all I have to say about the sun. So, new paragraph!
I saw Patrick Stewart last night! And no, I didn't actually get to meet him although we did try. We went to the stage door afterwards with several other people and waited for the actors to come out. The woman who played Cleopatra, Harriet Walter, who was effin' BRILLIANT, came out and signed our programs and was very nice and wished us all luck in our careers and so forth. Incidentally, if you love Sense and Sensibility like I do (and I'm guessing Mom might be the only person reading this who also loves that movie) you should know that she played Fanny Dashwood. She has actually had a very impressive stage career, but that's just something you might know her from, anyway. At any rate, she came out and did the whole autograph thing, but Patrick Stewart just slipped out the stage door a few minutes later wearing a cap and basically just kept his head down and jogged right on by. Mindy did call out, "Excellent work, Mr. Stewart!" and he said, "Thank you!" but he didn't stop to talk to anyone. And honestly, you can't blame the guy. Think of all the crazy trekkies I'm sure he's had to deal with in his lifetime.
Anyway, the show itself was awesome. I LOVED it. I wish I could see it again, actually. Patrick Stewart has terrific stage presence and made a wonderful Antony, and like I said, Cleopatra was the best I could have possibly imagined. Usually you think Cleopatra is going to be kind of harsh, or just very sexual and sort of bewitching, but Walter's Cleopatra had so much warmth and humor (ha, I almost typed "humour", the Brits are rubbing off on me...you should try typing a paper here, the spell check tries to change everything) and she brought so much depth to the role. Seriously, it was just super acting all around.
Unfortunately, there was a serious technical problem during the show. In Antony and Cleopatra as Antony is dying he is raised up to be with Cleopatra on her monument. There are different ways to do this, but in this show they actually put him into a harness on a pulley and raised him up into the air. So it's like, the absolute climactic moment of the play, and Patrick Stewart is in this harness and is slowly and very dramatically raised two stories above the stage, and Cleopatra is reaching out to him from the third floor balcony, and the lighting is haunting and beautiful music is playing and then the stage manager steps out from the wings and says, "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlement, we're going to have to stop the show. So let's lower Patrick back down, please, and ladies, if you can come down from the balcony to the stage."
My heart was in my throat. Immediately my mind started running through all these different scary scenarios. I went "Riot outside? Terrorist threat? Really bad storm? Fire? Patrick is actually hurt?" in a matter of about 2.5 seconds. Seriously, it's a sad fact, but any time something like that happens now I immediately worry that it's some sort of scary terrorist thing. Anyway, the stage manager went on to say that there was just a problem with the set, that the portion of the stage that the women were standing on was supposed to lower to meet Antony but wasn't working properly so they were going to have to just continue the scene from the stage floor. So we sort of missed out on the big dramatic moment, but hey, that's part of the fun of live theater! You never know exactly what you're going to see. Apparently that's the only time the set has ever malfunctioned like that. So it was a bit disappointing to not have the full effect, but I'm glad we at least got the cool visual of Antony hanging above the stage. Plus it gave interesting insight as an actor/director/stage manager to see the way that the stage manager kept her cool and handled the situation and the way that the actors stayed perfectly in character and weren't at all phased and were able to pick up right where they'd left off. Patrick Stewart actually continued to just lie on the floor seemingly near death during the whole ordeal, and Harriet Walter came racing down the stairs onto the stage and threw herself to his side still completely in character even though the show had stopped and several techies were standing on stage. That's some serious professionalism. And then once the show started again I was immediately pulled back into the story within seconds. Ah, the talent and grace under pressure!
Anyway, I was enthralled by the show and I'm so happy I got to see it. So both shows we've seen here so far have been fantastic. Tonight we see Much Ado About Nothing.
After the show last night Alex Mc, Amanda and I went to the Dirty Duck for a while. That's the pub here right across from the theatre where all the actors go to hang out. It was alright, although a bit too pretentious for me. I'm not really into schmoozing, you know? Apparently the group that came last here hung out there all the time, but I'll take the Lamplighter over the Dirty Duck any day. Plus the other Americans studying at the Trust right now, a group from New York (we don't take classes with them, we only see them in the halls and stuff) were there last night and on the whole they're sort of a snobby group of people. We keep trying to be friendly to them, smiling and saying hi and such, and they ignore us completely every time. Oh well, at least we try.
Today was a full day. We had rehearsal for our showcase scenes this morning, which went fine. On our walk to rehearsal this morning Mindy, John and I were running lines as we walked down the street and I suddenly realized that I was standing in the town where Shakespeare might very well have written those lines for the first time. Given, odds are he actually wrote a lot of his plays in London, but the fact that he could have was kind of a cool thought. After lunch we had several talks, first a post-show talk about Antony and Cleopatra, then we got to have a Q&A session with Keith Oswald, the actor who plays Agrippa in the show. So that was cool. And then after that Russell Jackson came to talk to us about Much Ado. I was excited to meet him since he's a dramaturg (or a "text advisor", which is what he told us he personally likes to call his job. But it's the same thing, basically) and we had actually talked a lot about him in my Dramaturgy class. It's always so weird (but awesome!) to meet people you've learned about in classes in real life. Anyway, he has been the text advisor on all of Kenneth Brannagh's Shakespeare films (Hamlet, Much Ado, etc.) and he also was the advisor on Shakespeare in Love, which I didn't know but was happy to find out. He gave a really entertaining lecture.
Anyway, the library is closing in ten minutes and I need to go eat dinner and get ready for the show tonight anyway, so I'm out of here. Tomorrow is just as packed with activities as today is so I'm not sure that I'll have time to post, but I'll try. And if I don't post tomorrow I definitely won't be posting on Friday since we'll be in London for the day on Friday. In other words, if you don't hear from me again until Saturday or Sunday don't worry.
I saw Patrick Stewart last night! And no, I didn't actually get to meet him although we did try. We went to the stage door afterwards with several other people and waited for the actors to come out. The woman who played Cleopatra, Harriet Walter, who was effin' BRILLIANT, came out and signed our programs and was very nice and wished us all luck in our careers and so forth. Incidentally, if you love Sense and Sensibility like I do (and I'm guessing Mom might be the only person reading this who also loves that movie) you should know that she played Fanny Dashwood. She has actually had a very impressive stage career, but that's just something you might know her from, anyway. At any rate, she came out and did the whole autograph thing, but Patrick Stewart just slipped out the stage door a few minutes later wearing a cap and basically just kept his head down and jogged right on by. Mindy did call out, "Excellent work, Mr. Stewart!" and he said, "Thank you!" but he didn't stop to talk to anyone. And honestly, you can't blame the guy. Think of all the crazy trekkies I'm sure he's had to deal with in his lifetime.
Anyway, the show itself was awesome. I LOVED it. I wish I could see it again, actually. Patrick Stewart has terrific stage presence and made a wonderful Antony, and like I said, Cleopatra was the best I could have possibly imagined. Usually you think Cleopatra is going to be kind of harsh, or just very sexual and sort of bewitching, but Walter's Cleopatra had so much warmth and humor (ha, I almost typed "humour", the Brits are rubbing off on me...you should try typing a paper here, the spell check tries to change everything) and she brought so much depth to the role. Seriously, it was just super acting all around.
Unfortunately, there was a serious technical problem during the show. In Antony and Cleopatra as Antony is dying he is raised up to be with Cleopatra on her monument. There are different ways to do this, but in this show they actually put him into a harness on a pulley and raised him up into the air. So it's like, the absolute climactic moment of the play, and Patrick Stewart is in this harness and is slowly and very dramatically raised two stories above the stage, and Cleopatra is reaching out to him from the third floor balcony, and the lighting is haunting and beautiful music is playing and then the stage manager steps out from the wings and says, "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlement, we're going to have to stop the show. So let's lower Patrick back down, please, and ladies, if you can come down from the balcony to the stage."
My heart was in my throat. Immediately my mind started running through all these different scary scenarios. I went "Riot outside? Terrorist threat? Really bad storm? Fire? Patrick is actually hurt?" in a matter of about 2.5 seconds. Seriously, it's a sad fact, but any time something like that happens now I immediately worry that it's some sort of scary terrorist thing. Anyway, the stage manager went on to say that there was just a problem with the set, that the portion of the stage that the women were standing on was supposed to lower to meet Antony but wasn't working properly so they were going to have to just continue the scene from the stage floor. So we sort of missed out on the big dramatic moment, but hey, that's part of the fun of live theater! You never know exactly what you're going to see. Apparently that's the only time the set has ever malfunctioned like that. So it was a bit disappointing to not have the full effect, but I'm glad we at least got the cool visual of Antony hanging above the stage. Plus it gave interesting insight as an actor/director/stage manager to see the way that the stage manager kept her cool and handled the situation and the way that the actors stayed perfectly in character and weren't at all phased and were able to pick up right where they'd left off. Patrick Stewart actually continued to just lie on the floor seemingly near death during the whole ordeal, and Harriet Walter came racing down the stairs onto the stage and threw herself to his side still completely in character even though the show had stopped and several techies were standing on stage. That's some serious professionalism. And then once the show started again I was immediately pulled back into the story within seconds. Ah, the talent and grace under pressure!
Anyway, I was enthralled by the show and I'm so happy I got to see it. So both shows we've seen here so far have been fantastic. Tonight we see Much Ado About Nothing.
After the show last night Alex Mc, Amanda and I went to the Dirty Duck for a while. That's the pub here right across from the theatre where all the actors go to hang out. It was alright, although a bit too pretentious for me. I'm not really into schmoozing, you know? Apparently the group that came last here hung out there all the time, but I'll take the Lamplighter over the Dirty Duck any day. Plus the other Americans studying at the Trust right now, a group from New York (we don't take classes with them, we only see them in the halls and stuff) were there last night and on the whole they're sort of a snobby group of people. We keep trying to be friendly to them, smiling and saying hi and such, and they ignore us completely every time. Oh well, at least we try.
Today was a full day. We had rehearsal for our showcase scenes this morning, which went fine. On our walk to rehearsal this morning Mindy, John and I were running lines as we walked down the street and I suddenly realized that I was standing in the town where Shakespeare might very well have written those lines for the first time. Given, odds are he actually wrote a lot of his plays in London, but the fact that he could have was kind of a cool thought. After lunch we had several talks, first a post-show talk about Antony and Cleopatra, then we got to have a Q&A session with Keith Oswald, the actor who plays Agrippa in the show. So that was cool. And then after that Russell Jackson came to talk to us about Much Ado. I was excited to meet him since he's a dramaturg (or a "text advisor", which is what he told us he personally likes to call his job. But it's the same thing, basically) and we had actually talked a lot about him in my Dramaturgy class. It's always so weird (but awesome!) to meet people you've learned about in classes in real life. Anyway, he has been the text advisor on all of Kenneth Brannagh's Shakespeare films (Hamlet, Much Ado, etc.) and he also was the advisor on Shakespeare in Love, which I didn't know but was happy to find out. He gave a really entertaining lecture.
Anyway, the library is closing in ten minutes and I need to go eat dinner and get ready for the show tonight anyway, so I'm out of here. Tomorrow is just as packed with activities as today is so I'm not sure that I'll have time to post, but I'll try. And if I don't post tomorrow I definitely won't be posting on Friday since we'll be in London for the day on Friday. In other words, if you don't hear from me again until Saturday or Sunday don't worry.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Patrick Stewart Day
I don't have much time to write today. Shocking, I know. I've already used up most of my computer time looking up train schedules and costs since a group of us would really like to get out of town and do something this weekend. We're already doing a day trip to London on Friday as a class, but a bunch of us would like to maybe go back to London or do another day trip on Saturday or Sunday since Stratford is a little place and we've already seen pretty much all there is to see here. And while one Sunday of just hanging out around town doing not much of anything was fine, I'm not particularly excited about spending both Saturday and Sunday here doing nothing special. So hopefully we can plan something for the weekend.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon's voice class with Charmian, another voice teacher at the RSC, was really good. It was very physical, lots of running around and shouting and stuff. Then last night not much of anything happened. I walked around a bit, grabbed dinner, and then just hung out at the B&B, mainly with Amanda and one of the Alexes.
Today I spent the morning in the Birthplace Trust library working on my paper. I got a whole lot accomplished on it today so I'm feeling pretty good about it (as opposed to how I felt after last week's library session, which was something along the lines of 'Holy hell, this paper will never, EVER get finished, much less be acceptable as a potential conference paper'). I'm writing about Julius Caesar and the way in which directors often set the show within a context of current political events, so I'm looking at three RSC productions, one that sets the show in Mussolini's Italy, one that sets the show in an emerging ex-Soviet democratic nation, and one that sets the show around the Velvet Revolution. It's interesting research so I hope the paper turns into something semi-decent although we have a lot to do next week and not a ton of writing time so who knows what will actually happen.
Anyway, we had a lecture on Antony and Cleopatra today because we're seeing it tonight. I'm so excited about seeing this show. I've never actually seen Antony and Cleopatra performed, not on stage, not in a movie, not at all. It's one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, though (possibly my very favorite, actually) so I'm happy to finally get a chance to see it. And this performance is supposed to be really terrific, it has been getting good reviews. And in case you didn't glean this from my oh-so-creative title, Patrick Stewart stars as Antony. So yeah. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow if it ends up being worthwhile, and it better!
I'm off to go look at more train schedules. Talk to you peeps tomorrow, probably.
P.S.-To Mom and Dad: I don't know what time of the month my cell phone bill comes, but be aware that it might be, um, significantly more than usual because of international text message charges. Ha. Just rest assured that I've specifically budgeted some of my spending money to cover the text message fees I'm probably racking up over here and I will pay you back when I get home. Love you!
Anyway, yesterday afternoon's voice class with Charmian, another voice teacher at the RSC, was really good. It was very physical, lots of running around and shouting and stuff. Then last night not much of anything happened. I walked around a bit, grabbed dinner, and then just hung out at the B&B, mainly with Amanda and one of the Alexes.
Today I spent the morning in the Birthplace Trust library working on my paper. I got a whole lot accomplished on it today so I'm feeling pretty good about it (as opposed to how I felt after last week's library session, which was something along the lines of 'Holy hell, this paper will never, EVER get finished, much less be acceptable as a potential conference paper'). I'm writing about Julius Caesar and the way in which directors often set the show within a context of current political events, so I'm looking at three RSC productions, one that sets the show in Mussolini's Italy, one that sets the show in an emerging ex-Soviet democratic nation, and one that sets the show around the Velvet Revolution. It's interesting research so I hope the paper turns into something semi-decent although we have a lot to do next week and not a ton of writing time so who knows what will actually happen.
Anyway, we had a lecture on Antony and Cleopatra today because we're seeing it tonight. I'm so excited about seeing this show. I've never actually seen Antony and Cleopatra performed, not on stage, not in a movie, not at all. It's one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, though (possibly my very favorite, actually) so I'm happy to finally get a chance to see it. And this performance is supposed to be really terrific, it has been getting good reviews. And in case you didn't glean this from my oh-so-creative title, Patrick Stewart stars as Antony. So yeah. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow if it ends up being worthwhile, and it better!
I'm off to go look at more train schedules. Talk to you peeps tomorrow, probably.
P.S.-To Mom and Dad: I don't know what time of the month my cell phone bill comes, but be aware that it might be, um, significantly more than usual because of international text message charges. Ha. Just rest assured that I've specifically budgeted some of my spending money to cover the text message fees I'm probably racking up over here and I will pay you back when I get home. Love you!
Monday, June 19, 2006
I Hate Titles
I only have an hour and a half break between classes right now, so you're not going to get much of an entry today because I'm really hungry and I need to actually go buy a sandwich before our next class. We have a voice class with a lady we haven't met yet this afternoon so it will be interesting to see what she's all about.
Speaking of voices, we made the fascinating discovery on Saturday afternoon that I have no tendon attached to the bottom of my tongue. You know when you lift your tongue up towards the roof of your mouth how most people have a tendon underneath it and some people's are much shorter than others (and some people are actually born literally tongue-tied and have to get it snipped)? Well, it would seem that I don't have a tendon at all. I mean, obviously I must have one, I don't think my tongue would function for speech without one, but it's not visible at all. Apparently Gene Simmons doesn't have one either and that's why his tongue is so damn freaky. Anyway, Dr. C noticed it first (honestly, I can't remember why we were all showing each other our tongues in the first place) and then she showed Patricia whose major focus is speech and voice, and Patricia was like, "Wow, I've never seen that before." So now I'm wondering if the rest of my family is like me and if it's a genetic thing or if I seriously have a mutated tongue. So, family, check it out and report back to me. This is assuming you even know what the hell I'm talking about, of course, since I realize this isn't the best description ever. Anyway, I've decided that this is an attribute. There's nothing to tie my tongue down and keep it from going wherever it wants, if you know what I mean...
Anyway, I didn't end up doing much of anything interesting on my day off yesterday. My group worked on blocking our scene in the park for a while and then six of us went and ate dinner at a pub. I had this Indian curry dish and it was pretty awesome. This morning we took a group outing to Hall's Croft, the home belonging to Shakespeare's daughter Susanna and her husband John Hall. He was a doctor so the house was full of medical gadgets and information about medical practices in Shakespeare's day and slightly later. There was this absolutely horrifying display of forceps that would be enough to put anyone off the idea of getting pregnant and having a baby. It's also amazing the amount of things they thought could be cured by eating ground up cooked mice. Gross, gross, gross. The garden at the house was beautiful and it had a big open yard. It was actually probably my favorite house that we've visited so far in terms of the structure of the house itself.
This morning after our tour we had another sonnet focus session with Paul and at the end Dr. C had Alex and I read our sonnets that we wrote back in Texas to the class. You remember, the sonnet I posted on here a couple of weeks back? She liked it! And it made Paul laugh, too. I just thought it was ridiculous, but apparently it was also "creative" and a good use of the form.
Alright, a tomato and cheese baguette is calling to me from down the street, so I'm outta here. I'll probably talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaking of voices, we made the fascinating discovery on Saturday afternoon that I have no tendon attached to the bottom of my tongue. You know when you lift your tongue up towards the roof of your mouth how most people have a tendon underneath it and some people's are much shorter than others (and some people are actually born literally tongue-tied and have to get it snipped)? Well, it would seem that I don't have a tendon at all. I mean, obviously I must have one, I don't think my tongue would function for speech without one, but it's not visible at all. Apparently Gene Simmons doesn't have one either and that's why his tongue is so damn freaky. Anyway, Dr. C noticed it first (honestly, I can't remember why we were all showing each other our tongues in the first place) and then she showed Patricia whose major focus is speech and voice, and Patricia was like, "Wow, I've never seen that before." So now I'm wondering if the rest of my family is like me and if it's a genetic thing or if I seriously have a mutated tongue. So, family, check it out and report back to me. This is assuming you even know what the hell I'm talking about, of course, since I realize this isn't the best description ever. Anyway, I've decided that this is an attribute. There's nothing to tie my tongue down and keep it from going wherever it wants, if you know what I mean...
Anyway, I didn't end up doing much of anything interesting on my day off yesterday. My group worked on blocking our scene in the park for a while and then six of us went and ate dinner at a pub. I had this Indian curry dish and it was pretty awesome. This morning we took a group outing to Hall's Croft, the home belonging to Shakespeare's daughter Susanna and her husband John Hall. He was a doctor so the house was full of medical gadgets and information about medical practices in Shakespeare's day and slightly later. There was this absolutely horrifying display of forceps that would be enough to put anyone off the idea of getting pregnant and having a baby. It's also amazing the amount of things they thought could be cured by eating ground up cooked mice. Gross, gross, gross. The garden at the house was beautiful and it had a big open yard. It was actually probably my favorite house that we've visited so far in terms of the structure of the house itself.
This morning after our tour we had another sonnet focus session with Paul and at the end Dr. C had Alex and I read our sonnets that we wrote back in Texas to the class. You remember, the sonnet I posted on here a couple of weeks back? She liked it! And it made Paul laugh, too. I just thought it was ridiculous, but apparently it was also "creative" and a good use of the form.
Alright, a tomato and cheese baguette is calling to me from down the street, so I'm outta here. I'll probably talk to you all tomorrow.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
En Guarde
Happy Sunday, everyone! And, hey, I just remembered, Happy Father's Day! I'm sure Dad hasn't actually figured out how to read and comment on this thing, but tell him I said hi and I love him and he's the best!
Yesterday was a lot of fun. We had a stage combat workshop alllllll day, from 10:00 until 5:00. It was a good workout, my body is really sore today. We did all sorts of stuff. We did some fighting with quarter staffs (that's what they're called, right, those long sticks?) and some hand-to-hand combat. We learned how to make it look like we were punching, kneeing, slapping, and strangling each other, pulling each other's hair, throwing each other to the ground, etc...And of course there was some sword fighting. We choreographed a bit of the Tybalt/Mercutio duel, which we staged with Tybalt having a sword and Mercutio fighting with an umbrella, which was kind of a cool choice of weapon, and then we learned choreography for the duel between Hamlet and Laertes. I loved using the swords especially, although they're pretty heavy. I think I'm too dainty to be very convincing in my sword play, but it sure was fun. I'd love to take some classes in actual fencing one of these days, since obviously stage combat techniques are a little bit different since the goal is to NOT actually hit the other person. Anyway, it was really cool and something I'd definitely like to try again in the future.
Last night by the time we got out of combat class the libraries were closed so I took my computer over to Dr. C's flat and Amanda, Liz and I sat outside on her curb stealing a wireless internet signal again. Dr. C is so sweet, we were sitting out there just chillin' and reading e-mail when her daughter Olivia (who is 9 years old and really cute and smart, I play a lot of I Spy with her on group outings) brought us a plate of veggie kabobs and some bread. We were joking that we should go over there and sit outside like bums more often since we sure don't get kabobs at the public library. While I was checking e-mail over there I watched the video Chelsea made me of Cohen, and of course it made me cry. She set it to "Baby Mine" for god's sake! So the music started playing and there was my goofy basset running around like a maniac (clearly being a punk, actually) and I started tearing up, and Liz and Amanda were watching me and Liz said, "Aw, Ashley, you're going to make me cry!" It was ridiculous. I DO miss Cohen a lot, but I swear it was more the song that made me get all teary than anything else since that song always makes me all nostalgic remembering Dad rocking me to it when I was little anyway. Damn you, Chelsea, for making me cry over my bassie! You totally did it on purpose! Thankfully my roommates don't think I'm crazy at all because Amanda misses her Penny just as much as I miss Cohen, and we've jokingly decided that Claire is sort of Liz's pet (in the best possible way and no offense at all to Claire, of course :-)). At night we lie in our beds with our computers going, "Want to see a picture of Penny?" "Here's a really cute one of Cohen in a party hat!" "Here's my favorite picture of Penny...wait, let me show it to you again bigger!" We're just waiting for the night Liz pulls out some snapshots of Claire. Haha.
Last night all of us went to the Lamplighter pub again to watch the USA/Italy soccer game. We met some interesting characters last night. One guy who has lived in Stratford pretty much his whole life was grilling Amanda about the USA, asking her all about the weather and different cities and whether certain things are true. His name was Pierre, and I've never seen a guy that looked less like his name in my life. He was a big old tattooed Englishman. We also befriended Pete the bartender, and there was this sort of crazy drunk guy named Zach who talked to us the entire time we were there. And then there's Jan or Jen (I can't tell which it actually is because of her accent) who is the pub manager, and she has sort of adopted us as her own and whenever other people would start teasing us last night she'd tell them, "You leave those kids alone, I'm looking out for them!" So in other words, I guess we're regulars now. The game itself was pretty stupid. It ended up tied 1-1, but only because one of the Italians accidentally scored a goal for the U.S. I bet he feels like a real tool.
Today is the first totally free day we've had since we got here a week ago. Time is going by so slowly here, it definitely feels like we've been living here for way more than a week. I actually slept in today (if you can count sleeping until 10:00 as "sleeping in") and then Amanda, Liz and I went and had a really good lunch at a cafe. Now we're at the library, and after this I guess we'll just chill for the rest of the day. I guess at some point today my group will probably try to have a rehearsal, and I'd like to go down by the river later because I think they're having a sort of arts and crafts fair down there today, but other than that we have no plans. I really wish we had a show to go to today, but we don't go to the theatre again until Tuesday (and then we go four nights in a row!).
I guess that's about all I have to say today. I always end up laughing so hard here about various things people have said but then by the time I get to the computer I always forget what it was that was so funny. Oh well. I'm having fun, anyway.
Yesterday was a lot of fun. We had a stage combat workshop alllllll day, from 10:00 until 5:00. It was a good workout, my body is really sore today. We did all sorts of stuff. We did some fighting with quarter staffs (that's what they're called, right, those long sticks?) and some hand-to-hand combat. We learned how to make it look like we were punching, kneeing, slapping, and strangling each other, pulling each other's hair, throwing each other to the ground, etc...And of course there was some sword fighting. We choreographed a bit of the Tybalt/Mercutio duel, which we staged with Tybalt having a sword and Mercutio fighting with an umbrella, which was kind of a cool choice of weapon, and then we learned choreography for the duel between Hamlet and Laertes. I loved using the swords especially, although they're pretty heavy. I think I'm too dainty to be very convincing in my sword play, but it sure was fun. I'd love to take some classes in actual fencing one of these days, since obviously stage combat techniques are a little bit different since the goal is to NOT actually hit the other person. Anyway, it was really cool and something I'd definitely like to try again in the future.
Last night by the time we got out of combat class the libraries were closed so I took my computer over to Dr. C's flat and Amanda, Liz and I sat outside on her curb stealing a wireless internet signal again. Dr. C is so sweet, we were sitting out there just chillin' and reading e-mail when her daughter Olivia (who is 9 years old and really cute and smart, I play a lot of I Spy with her on group outings) brought us a plate of veggie kabobs and some bread. We were joking that we should go over there and sit outside like bums more often since we sure don't get kabobs at the public library. While I was checking e-mail over there I watched the video Chelsea made me of Cohen, and of course it made me cry. She set it to "Baby Mine" for god's sake! So the music started playing and there was my goofy basset running around like a maniac (clearly being a punk, actually) and I started tearing up, and Liz and Amanda were watching me and Liz said, "Aw, Ashley, you're going to make me cry!" It was ridiculous. I DO miss Cohen a lot, but I swear it was more the song that made me get all teary than anything else since that song always makes me all nostalgic remembering Dad rocking me to it when I was little anyway. Damn you, Chelsea, for making me cry over my bassie! You totally did it on purpose! Thankfully my roommates don't think I'm crazy at all because Amanda misses her Penny just as much as I miss Cohen, and we've jokingly decided that Claire is sort of Liz's pet (in the best possible way and no offense at all to Claire, of course :-)). At night we lie in our beds with our computers going, "Want to see a picture of Penny?" "Here's a really cute one of Cohen in a party hat!" "Here's my favorite picture of Penny...wait, let me show it to you again bigger!" We're just waiting for the night Liz pulls out some snapshots of Claire. Haha.
Last night all of us went to the Lamplighter pub again to watch the USA/Italy soccer game. We met some interesting characters last night. One guy who has lived in Stratford pretty much his whole life was grilling Amanda about the USA, asking her all about the weather and different cities and whether certain things are true. His name was Pierre, and I've never seen a guy that looked less like his name in my life. He was a big old tattooed Englishman. We also befriended Pete the bartender, and there was this sort of crazy drunk guy named Zach who talked to us the entire time we were there. And then there's Jan or Jen (I can't tell which it actually is because of her accent) who is the pub manager, and she has sort of adopted us as her own and whenever other people would start teasing us last night she'd tell them, "You leave those kids alone, I'm looking out for them!" So in other words, I guess we're regulars now. The game itself was pretty stupid. It ended up tied 1-1, but only because one of the Italians accidentally scored a goal for the U.S. I bet he feels like a real tool.
Today is the first totally free day we've had since we got here a week ago. Time is going by so slowly here, it definitely feels like we've been living here for way more than a week. I actually slept in today (if you can count sleeping until 10:00 as "sleeping in") and then Amanda, Liz and I went and had a really good lunch at a cafe. Now we're at the library, and after this I guess we'll just chill for the rest of the day. I guess at some point today my group will probably try to have a rehearsal, and I'd like to go down by the river later because I think they're having a sort of arts and crafts fair down there today, but other than that we have no plans. I really wish we had a show to go to today, but we don't go to the theatre again until Tuesday (and then we go four nights in a row!).
I guess that's about all I have to say today. I always end up laughing so hard here about various things people have said but then by the time I get to the computer I always forget what it was that was so funny. Oh well. I'm having fun, anyway.
Friday, June 16, 2006
En-ga-land! En-ga-land!
Wow, lots of comments on the last entry (most of them from Chelsea, ha!). I responded to everyone in the comments section on the last entry, so read that for your personalized messages.
Alright, now that that business is out of the way I can tell you that last night Liz, Alex, Alex and I went to watch the England game, and it was so much fun! We watched it at "Shakespearience". I have no idea what the heck Shakespearience actually is during normal business hours. From what I can tell it's some sort of virtual reality Shakespeare exhibit where they show 3D movies about Shakespeare's life or something. I don't know, it's right on the river in the tourist-y part of town and it's probably for people with kids who don't want to sit through an actual production of one of Shakespeare's plays so they do that instead. At any rate, last night they'd converted it into a sort of pub and for £5 you could get a seat, a pint, and watch the game on a big movie screen. It was so much fun! I've never watched an entire soccer game in my life, ever. I don't think I've ever watched more than ten consecutive minutes of a soccer game until I got here earlier this week (well, maybe when I was in London last time since Jorge was always dragging me to various pubs to watch the EFC games, but I didn't really pay much attention then). But lately I've actually been paying attention to entire games and it turns out soccer is pretty interesting to watch. I don't know what the hell Dad and Shane are talking about when they say it's boring. For one thing, each game is 90 minutes long and it actually lasts 90 minutes. They don't ever stop the clock. They may add a bit of injury time on at the end of the game, but never more than about five minutes so when the clock says 75:00 you know there are actually just fifteen minutes left. Not like in American football where 2 minutes easily becomes 20. That alone is a major benefit to soccer. The added benefits are that it's a very fast-paced game and the ball changes hands (feet) a lot so it's exciting, the rules are easy for a sports idiot like me to understand, and there are a lot of very hot soccer players. I guess it would never be this much fun to watch in the states just 'cause you wouldn't get the same atmosphere because nobody cares about it there, but here it's pretty exciting.
The pub was packed full of English guys (and some girls) and they were all chanting and cheering and bitching when over and over and over again England almost scored and then screwed up. But then they won and everyone went wild! After the game people were skipping down the street singing celebratory songs and blowing airhorns and stuff. And this is only the first round, I can't imagine what it's like to be in a soccer country when their team wins a major game. They have a whole long cheer that everyone kept singing, and the first time around I asked Liz, "Were there words to that song?" and she just shook her head and said, "I have no idea WHAT that was." Then they did it again and Liz goes, "I'm pretty sure the only word is 'England'." And it was. Remember that song from Wee Sing when you were a kid "Be kind to your web-footed friends, for that duck may be somebody's mother..."? Maybe nobody in the world remembers this except for Chelsea, but I'm sure she'll at least know what I'm talking about. Anyway, it's that song, but instead of actual words they just say "En-ga-land, En-ga-land, En-ga-land..." England pronounced with three syllables is my new favorite thing. They also love, love, love a player named Rooney, and whenever he comes onto the field or does anything impressive or even if the camera shot just flashes to him for a second the entire pub cheers, "Rooooooo-ney! Rooooooo-ney!" (only it sounds like Roo-nay since they're British and all). It's very entertaining.
After they won the game the whole town was keyed up. We went to a different pub that was still serving food so we could have dinner, and the whole night people were still singing and blowing their airhorns. I met a nice guy named Jamie who told Alex and I that he loved our accents (how weird, to be the one with an accent) and invited us to student night at a club called the Bureau. We didn't go last night 'cause we'd already had a really busy day, but we may go next week. He was funny because when he told us his name Alex said, "What is it?" and he just sighed and said, "It's a girl's name over there in the states, isn't it?" Ha. As we were leaving the pub later he and all his friends called out from their table, "We love Texas!" and we called back, "We love England!" and everybody cheered. I love when stupid stuff like that happens.
This morning we took the train out to Wilmcote (it's only four miles, so not very far at all) to visit Mary Arden's family farm. Mary Arden is Shakespeare's mother, so this house is the place where she was raised. It was a fun day in the country. We got to see the farm and they have all sorts of animals out there that you can interact with: sheep, pigs, the biggest chickens I've ever seen, goats, owls, falcons. Some of the owls and falcons were HUGE. Really pretty and cool. We had lunch there before taking the train back and I was able to have clotted cream and scones for the first time this trip. I love clotted cream. It's a good thing it's kinda tricky to find it back home 'cause I'd gorge myself on it all the time and I'm sure there's nothing remotely healthy about it. It's like the best things about whipped cream and butter combined in one perfect spread. I just wish it had a different name, 'cause when you really think about it being "clotted" that kind of ruins it.
Anyway, I need to post this 'cause I'm almost out of library time and I need to do some actual research real quick because I'm actually here to study, apparently. Tonight we're going to a cocktail reception for the launch of a new Shakespeare handbook that Paul worked on. Fancy, fancy. I probably won't update tomorrow because we have a stage combat workshop that goes all day long, but I'll try to catch up again on Sunday. Bye for now!
Alright, now that that business is out of the way I can tell you that last night Liz, Alex, Alex and I went to watch the England game, and it was so much fun! We watched it at "Shakespearience". I have no idea what the heck Shakespearience actually is during normal business hours. From what I can tell it's some sort of virtual reality Shakespeare exhibit where they show 3D movies about Shakespeare's life or something. I don't know, it's right on the river in the tourist-y part of town and it's probably for people with kids who don't want to sit through an actual production of one of Shakespeare's plays so they do that instead. At any rate, last night they'd converted it into a sort of pub and for £5 you could get a seat, a pint, and watch the game on a big movie screen. It was so much fun! I've never watched an entire soccer game in my life, ever. I don't think I've ever watched more than ten consecutive minutes of a soccer game until I got here earlier this week (well, maybe when I was in London last time since Jorge was always dragging me to various pubs to watch the EFC games, but I didn't really pay much attention then). But lately I've actually been paying attention to entire games and it turns out soccer is pretty interesting to watch. I don't know what the hell Dad and Shane are talking about when they say it's boring. For one thing, each game is 90 minutes long and it actually lasts 90 minutes. They don't ever stop the clock. They may add a bit of injury time on at the end of the game, but never more than about five minutes so when the clock says 75:00 you know there are actually just fifteen minutes left. Not like in American football where 2 minutes easily becomes 20. That alone is a major benefit to soccer. The added benefits are that it's a very fast-paced game and the ball changes hands (feet) a lot so it's exciting, the rules are easy for a sports idiot like me to understand, and there are a lot of very hot soccer players. I guess it would never be this much fun to watch in the states just 'cause you wouldn't get the same atmosphere because nobody cares about it there, but here it's pretty exciting.
The pub was packed full of English guys (and some girls) and they were all chanting and cheering and bitching when over and over and over again England almost scored and then screwed up. But then they won and everyone went wild! After the game people were skipping down the street singing celebratory songs and blowing airhorns and stuff. And this is only the first round, I can't imagine what it's like to be in a soccer country when their team wins a major game. They have a whole long cheer that everyone kept singing, and the first time around I asked Liz, "Were there words to that song?" and she just shook her head and said, "I have no idea WHAT that was." Then they did it again and Liz goes, "I'm pretty sure the only word is 'England'." And it was. Remember that song from Wee Sing when you were a kid "Be kind to your web-footed friends, for that duck may be somebody's mother..."? Maybe nobody in the world remembers this except for Chelsea, but I'm sure she'll at least know what I'm talking about. Anyway, it's that song, but instead of actual words they just say "En-ga-land, En-ga-land, En-ga-land..." England pronounced with three syllables is my new favorite thing. They also love, love, love a player named Rooney, and whenever he comes onto the field or does anything impressive or even if the camera shot just flashes to him for a second the entire pub cheers, "Rooooooo-ney! Rooooooo-ney!" (only it sounds like Roo-nay since they're British and all). It's very entertaining.
After they won the game the whole town was keyed up. We went to a different pub that was still serving food so we could have dinner, and the whole night people were still singing and blowing their airhorns. I met a nice guy named Jamie who told Alex and I that he loved our accents (how weird, to be the one with an accent) and invited us to student night at a club called the Bureau. We didn't go last night 'cause we'd already had a really busy day, but we may go next week. He was funny because when he told us his name Alex said, "What is it?" and he just sighed and said, "It's a girl's name over there in the states, isn't it?" Ha. As we were leaving the pub later he and all his friends called out from their table, "We love Texas!" and we called back, "We love England!" and everybody cheered. I love when stupid stuff like that happens.
This morning we took the train out to Wilmcote (it's only four miles, so not very far at all) to visit Mary Arden's family farm. Mary Arden is Shakespeare's mother, so this house is the place where she was raised. It was a fun day in the country. We got to see the farm and they have all sorts of animals out there that you can interact with: sheep, pigs, the biggest chickens I've ever seen, goats, owls, falcons. Some of the owls and falcons were HUGE. Really pretty and cool. We had lunch there before taking the train back and I was able to have clotted cream and scones for the first time this trip. I love clotted cream. It's a good thing it's kinda tricky to find it back home 'cause I'd gorge myself on it all the time and I'm sure there's nothing remotely healthy about it. It's like the best things about whipped cream and butter combined in one perfect spread. I just wish it had a different name, 'cause when you really think about it being "clotted" that kind of ruins it.
Anyway, I need to post this 'cause I'm almost out of library time and I need to do some actual research real quick because I'm actually here to study, apparently. Tonight we're going to a cocktail reception for the launch of a new Shakespeare handbook that Paul worked on. Fancy, fancy. I probably won't update tomorrow because we have a stage combat workshop that goes all day long, but I'll try to catch up again on Sunday. Bye for now!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Sweet, innocent...
So I'm back in the library again. The other library we went to doesn't have wireless internet access after all. It's another bank of computers we can use, which is good, so I should still be able to update pretty much daily. But I was just really wishing I could get my own computer to work so that I could use AIM. I miss chatting on AIM. But I didn't come to England to chat on AIM. Blah, blah, blah, I know, I know.
Anyway, things are still good. The visit to Anne Hathaway's cottage was good yesterday. The walk was really pretty, although we did see a horse lying sprawled out in a pasture. Healthy horses don't lie down, do they? Anyhow, we toured the house and took some pictures in the garden. I keep teasing Amanda because I swear she already has about a hundred pictures of flowers on her camera. She does have a purpose because she plans to print some of the best pictures in black and white and use them to decorate her room when we get back to Texas, but I have to tease her anyway. It was kind of cool to walk through the labyrinth again and see how much the bushes have grown since the last time I was there. They only came to my waist last time and now some of them are almost up to my head.
Last night was a lot of fun. The Alexes, Liz, Amanda and I went to a pub down the road from our house called The Lamplighter. It was pound fifty pint night, woohoo! I drank a couple pints of Strongbow (in draft form!! AH!), ate a greasy package of fish and chips, and watched the Poland/Germany "football" game. How very British of me. I always forget how ridiculous alcohol is here. For one thing, the alcohol content of beer is stronger than it is in the states. And then there's the fact that even though I only had two beers over a 2 1/2 hour period and that seems perfectly reasonable, a glass of beer here is an entire literal pint of beer. A glass of beer back home? Not so much. Anyway, we were all telling stories and making each other laugh about stupid things, and of course at some point sex came up and both Alexes' jaws dropped at a few things I had to say. Things that I'd rather not repeat here 'cause my Mom is reading this at the moment. This inevitably happens every time I'm getting to know new people. I blow the cover of my sweet and innocent reputation and it's never quite the same again. :-) I still don't understand why this reputation precedes me in the first place, but I've decided it's a mystery about myself that I'm just never going to solve. And it's also a reputation I'll never be able to shake no matter what the hell I do, so whatever! I embrace it.
Anyway, we all came home from the pub kinda buzzed. As we passed him on the second floor on our way upstairs Chris asked if we were drunk and Amanda said, "No, we're just amused" and I couldn't resist calling back down the stairwell, "Is amused a synonym for drunk?" Ha. The five of us are the only ones that live all the way up on the third floor and we've now decided that the third floor is where it's all going down. As long as we're showing up for class and getting our stuff done (and we do and we are) we figure we might as well enjoy the local culture while we're here. And, frankly, there's nothing to do here in Stratford after 6:00 other than go to the pubs, so what can ya do?
This morning was fun. Paul taped his lecture for the BBC this morning and we were guests in the audience. Since the show itself is actually about Holy Trinity Church, the portions Paul taped at the Birthplace Trust are actually just short little blurbs that I imagine will ultimately just be little short bits in the final show to establish the setting or something like that. So the "letcture" was actually just thirty seconds of real lecture and then a bunch of time when Paul talked about random things and the camera crew filmed us watching him talk and pretending to be fascinated and attentive. And then afterwards some of us happened to be standing around on the street deciding what to do next and the producer ended up asking us to be extras in some other shots. So they filmed us walking around in the birthplace gardens and pretending to take some pictures and look at the house and then they filmed us pretending to do research in the library. It was kinda fun, and it's not like I had anything better to do this morning. And the producer made me laugh by saying we were, "Lovely! So realistic!" as we were pretending to research. Um, yes. Because it's quite hard to pretend to read a book and copy notes out of it. Although maybe it is hard to just do your own thing and ignore a camera if you've never done it before, I don't know. The funny thing is, there's this girl in our group who drives us all crazy, and when they asked for a volunteer from the audience to be taped asking Paul a question, of course her hand flew up immediately. And the rest of us all groaned inwardly, because we know how Mindy is. Sure enough, it was the most long winded and complicated question ever. But they made it shorter and filmed her asking it, and now I'm sure we're not going to hear the end of it for days. Like, for the past couple of days now she's been all excited about this and talking about how she can add it to her resume, which is just ridiculous. You can't put that on a resume. "Extra on BBC program Songs of Grace". Haha. I mean, I suppose you COULD, but it would be a very pathetic move. And then she kept talking about how "we're being filmed on Thursday morning!" Um, no, dude. Paul the important Shakespeare expert is being filmed. We're just sitting on chairs to fill in the edges of the frame and ensure that he's speaking to a full house. Immediately after they filmed her asking her question she commented out loud to the whole room "I'm more than just 'extra on the left' now!" Jesus. Oh, the stories I could tell about this girl. But I'm not in a bitchy mood right now and, honestly, I mostly just feel bad for her. It's kind of depressing because I think she's genuinely a nice person and she seems to know how annoying she is (she wrote Jenn, her roommate, a letter the other day saying "If I'm following you around like a pathetic puppy dog just tell me to leave you alone and I will...") but she's just incapable of not being annoying. With the exception of her I really like everyone in this group, though, and we're all getting along well so far. So that's good.
This afternoon we had rehearsal for our scene with Patricia and then this afternoon we had the first half of our master class with Jane Lapotaire. She's definitely a character. She's a major classical actress, and an associate artist at the RSC (there are only about fifteen associate artists in the world, so apparently it's a really big deal). She's acted with people like Kenneth Brannagh and Sir Laurence Olivier, so she's kind of important. Google her if you're curious, it turns up tons of stuff but I'm too lazy to link right now. Needless to say, I was kind of intimidated. But you know, it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. She's actually really, really funny and entertaining. She is definitely very blunt and she's not afraid to make fun of you, but it wasn't as bad as I thought she might be. And she does have a point: if you can't take blunt criticism, acting is not for you. Given, I don't do well with constant criticism and acting is NOT for me and I already know that and I'll tell her that next time if I have to, but today I actually think I did fairly well and got off easy. The only critique I got is that my voice is very high. She said, "Can you lower your voice half an octave?" and I said "I can try..." and then she addressed the class and said, "Some girls, particularly cute little girls who are probably their daddy's favorite, have a habit of using a sweet little high pitched voice because they've found that it works to get them whatever they want from men." And everyone in the class that knows me burst out laughing and I just shrugged and laughed because, well, that's pretty much the truth. Hey, at least I acknowledge it! Anyway, then she went on to explain how I could lower my voice and it worked! She later referred to someone as looking like a "real prat" which I sort of love. Prat. I think that prat, 'have a go', and 'dodgy' all need more use in the U.S.
Alright, I'm getting the five minute warning on this computer and England plays a World Cup game on TV in ten minutes and I'd really like to be at a pub for at least part of the game because I'm sure it's going to be wild. So I'm out of here.
Anyway, things are still good. The visit to Anne Hathaway's cottage was good yesterday. The walk was really pretty, although we did see a horse lying sprawled out in a pasture. Healthy horses don't lie down, do they? Anyhow, we toured the house and took some pictures in the garden. I keep teasing Amanda because I swear she already has about a hundred pictures of flowers on her camera. She does have a purpose because she plans to print some of the best pictures in black and white and use them to decorate her room when we get back to Texas, but I have to tease her anyway. It was kind of cool to walk through the labyrinth again and see how much the bushes have grown since the last time I was there. They only came to my waist last time and now some of them are almost up to my head.
Last night was a lot of fun. The Alexes, Liz, Amanda and I went to a pub down the road from our house called The Lamplighter. It was pound fifty pint night, woohoo! I drank a couple pints of Strongbow (in draft form!! AH!), ate a greasy package of fish and chips, and watched the Poland/Germany "football" game. How very British of me. I always forget how ridiculous alcohol is here. For one thing, the alcohol content of beer is stronger than it is in the states. And then there's the fact that even though I only had two beers over a 2 1/2 hour period and that seems perfectly reasonable, a glass of beer here is an entire literal pint of beer. A glass of beer back home? Not so much. Anyway, we were all telling stories and making each other laugh about stupid things, and of course at some point sex came up and both Alexes' jaws dropped at a few things I had to say. Things that I'd rather not repeat here 'cause my Mom is reading this at the moment. This inevitably happens every time I'm getting to know new people. I blow the cover of my sweet and innocent reputation and it's never quite the same again. :-) I still don't understand why this reputation precedes me in the first place, but I've decided it's a mystery about myself that I'm just never going to solve. And it's also a reputation I'll never be able to shake no matter what the hell I do, so whatever! I embrace it.
Anyway, we all came home from the pub kinda buzzed. As we passed him on the second floor on our way upstairs Chris asked if we were drunk and Amanda said, "No, we're just amused" and I couldn't resist calling back down the stairwell, "Is amused a synonym for drunk?" Ha. The five of us are the only ones that live all the way up on the third floor and we've now decided that the third floor is where it's all going down. As long as we're showing up for class and getting our stuff done (and we do and we are) we figure we might as well enjoy the local culture while we're here. And, frankly, there's nothing to do here in Stratford after 6:00 other than go to the pubs, so what can ya do?
This morning was fun. Paul taped his lecture for the BBC this morning and we were guests in the audience. Since the show itself is actually about Holy Trinity Church, the portions Paul taped at the Birthplace Trust are actually just short little blurbs that I imagine will ultimately just be little short bits in the final show to establish the setting or something like that. So the "letcture" was actually just thirty seconds of real lecture and then a bunch of time when Paul talked about random things and the camera crew filmed us watching him talk and pretending to be fascinated and attentive. And then afterwards some of us happened to be standing around on the street deciding what to do next and the producer ended up asking us to be extras in some other shots. So they filmed us walking around in the birthplace gardens and pretending to take some pictures and look at the house and then they filmed us pretending to do research in the library. It was kinda fun, and it's not like I had anything better to do this morning. And the producer made me laugh by saying we were, "Lovely! So realistic!" as we were pretending to research. Um, yes. Because it's quite hard to pretend to read a book and copy notes out of it. Although maybe it is hard to just do your own thing and ignore a camera if you've never done it before, I don't know. The funny thing is, there's this girl in our group who drives us all crazy, and when they asked for a volunteer from the audience to be taped asking Paul a question, of course her hand flew up immediately. And the rest of us all groaned inwardly, because we know how Mindy is. Sure enough, it was the most long winded and complicated question ever. But they made it shorter and filmed her asking it, and now I'm sure we're not going to hear the end of it for days. Like, for the past couple of days now she's been all excited about this and talking about how she can add it to her resume, which is just ridiculous. You can't put that on a resume. "Extra on BBC program Songs of Grace". Haha. I mean, I suppose you COULD, but it would be a very pathetic move. And then she kept talking about how "we're being filmed on Thursday morning!" Um, no, dude. Paul the important Shakespeare expert is being filmed. We're just sitting on chairs to fill in the edges of the frame and ensure that he's speaking to a full house. Immediately after they filmed her asking her question she commented out loud to the whole room "I'm more than just 'extra on the left' now!" Jesus. Oh, the stories I could tell about this girl. But I'm not in a bitchy mood right now and, honestly, I mostly just feel bad for her. It's kind of depressing because I think she's genuinely a nice person and she seems to know how annoying she is (she wrote Jenn, her roommate, a letter the other day saying "If I'm following you around like a pathetic puppy dog just tell me to leave you alone and I will...") but she's just incapable of not being annoying. With the exception of her I really like everyone in this group, though, and we're all getting along well so far. So that's good.
This afternoon we had rehearsal for our scene with Patricia and then this afternoon we had the first half of our master class with Jane Lapotaire. She's definitely a character. She's a major classical actress, and an associate artist at the RSC (there are only about fifteen associate artists in the world, so apparently it's a really big deal). She's acted with people like Kenneth Brannagh and Sir Laurence Olivier, so she's kind of important. Google her if you're curious, it turns up tons of stuff but I'm too lazy to link right now. Needless to say, I was kind of intimidated. But you know, it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. She's actually really, really funny and entertaining. She is definitely very blunt and she's not afraid to make fun of you, but it wasn't as bad as I thought she might be. And she does have a point: if you can't take blunt criticism, acting is not for you. Given, I don't do well with constant criticism and acting is NOT for me and I already know that and I'll tell her that next time if I have to, but today I actually think I did fairly well and got off easy. The only critique I got is that my voice is very high. She said, "Can you lower your voice half an octave?" and I said "I can try..." and then she addressed the class and said, "Some girls, particularly cute little girls who are probably their daddy's favorite, have a habit of using a sweet little high pitched voice because they've found that it works to get them whatever they want from men." And everyone in the class that knows me burst out laughing and I just shrugged and laughed because, well, that's pretty much the truth. Hey, at least I acknowledge it! Anyway, then she went on to explain how I could lower my voice and it worked! She later referred to someone as looking like a "real prat" which I sort of love. Prat. I think that prat, 'have a go', and 'dodgy' all need more use in the U.S.
Alright, I'm getting the five minute warning on this computer and England plays a World Cup game on TV in ten minutes and I'd really like to be at a pub for at least part of the game because I'm sure it's going to be wild. So I'm out of here.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Finally Updating!
Hello hello. You all should be happy to know (or maybe you won't care at all, but I'm happy) that I think I've finally figured out a way to have daily internet access. Obviously I didn't post an entry yesterday. The thing is, getting a computer at the public library here is kind of a pain. You have to find time to come to the library early in the day and reserve an hour of computer time later. That in and of itself is not a pain, the bigger problem is that the library is only open from 9:00 until 5:00 most days and with this program we're pretty much booked from 9:30 until 5ish most days except for a lunch break, so it's hard to find time to write (and print the papers that I need to print).
I do have my computer and it connects to wireless internet, but I don't particularly want to pay to use the internet at any of the hot spots. My professor picks up someone else's wireless internet connection at her flat, and yesterday afternoon Jenn B. and I decided we were going to go over to Dr. C's house with our computers and use her internet for awhile. But when we got to her flat she wasn't home, so we decided to just sit on the curb outside and check to see if we could pick up a signal. And we could! So Jenn and I sat on the curb for half an hour using our computers until Dr. C and her daughters got home and let us come inside so we could quit looking like street urchins (very wealthy street urchins with Dell laptops). At one point a couple of the local police walked by and commented "That's a strange place to work" but once we explained what we were up to they just laughed at us and moved on. Jenn and I had a good laugh about the lengths we'll stoop to just to get free internet access. Ultimately the connection ended up being very weak, though, and I never could manage to stay connected long enough to post a blog entry, so Dr. C's flat will be a last resort from now on.
All of this has just been a very long winded intro to what I really wanted to say, which was that this morning Dr. C told us that she got us three grad students privileges to use the library at the Shakespeare Institute, a library that is open until 8:00 at night! And supposedly has a free wireless internet connection! And lets you print papers for free as opposed to the 15p a page that it costs at the public library. So hopefully that all actually works out and I'm able to blog more than once every two or three days.
Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened the past couple of days. For one thing, it finally stopped being super hot outside, thank god. Because did I mention that not only was our room hot, but that our shower wouldn't run cold water? For the first two days we were here our shower was only running water so hot that it was almost scalding, even when you placed it on the coldest possible setting. I have to say, I never thought I'd be complaining about the shower being too HOT. I'd be sweaty and gross in our hot room and want to take a cool refreshing shower, but the shower didn't even make me feel clean, just more hot and sweaty. It was Hell Room, seriously. Really cute Hell Room with a dormer window and my own little bed alcove, but Hell Room nonetheless. But then yesterday the weather got nice and cool and rainy and England-y like it's supposed to be, and I'm happily wearing a sweatshirt right now. And yesterday I also figured out that for some reason if you take a shower late at night you can actually get cool water for a few minutes before it goes back to attempting to melt my skin off. So living conditions have vastly improved.
On Monday night we saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Swan Theatre, and it was incredible. Seriously incredible. Definitely on the top ten list of all shows I've ever seen (and I've seen well over a hundred shows in my life at this point). It was done by a company from India, and less than half of the play was actually performed in English. The rest was done in seven different Indian dialects. So the language aspect was really interesting, and it was amazing how the language barrier wasn't actually a barrier to understanding at all. The staging was amazing, they had a massive vertical climbing wall that they used constantly, they climbed silk ropes hung from the ceiling, and the whole thing was very raw and sexual and passionate and just really fantastic. I joked to Amanda that I was going to entitle my critique "A Midsummer Night's Wet Dream" just to see Dr. C's reaction. Ha. It was sort of Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare. So cool!
Yesterday we had a voice lesson from the woman who is the head of Voice at the RSC, which was amazing. I got hands on attention from a woman who has given hands on training to all of the RSC actors! And the very first thing she said to me was, "You are a dancer, aren't you?" Ha. It's been five years since I did any sort of real dancing and my posture and stance still gives it away, apparently. And actually, all that muscle memory isn't really the best thing for vocal training, but what can you do? She taught us some interesting things and it was a fun session.
Then in the afternoon a woman came to show us all sorts of records from the Shakespeare archive. Not only did we get to look at stuff, we actually got to TOUCH stuff. I paged through a book of Stratford guild records from the 1400s. I held records concerning Shakespeare's finances in my hands. My very favorite thing was a note signed by Queen Elizabeth. I held a piece of paper signed by Elizabeth. It's sort of mind blowing. (She has the most awesome signature, by the way. Her Z has about six curlicues on the bottom. Very dramatic!)
This morning Paul and Stanley Wells lectured to us about the sonnets, which was really interesting, and this afternoon we're all walking out to Anne Hathaway's cottage, which should be fun, doing the same walk Shakespeare used to do when he'd go to court his wife.
Anyway, I have some funny stories, particularly about a show called EuroTrash that I watched with the Alexes last night (it was absolutely baffling, let me tell you) and about how certain people have willingly eaten yogurt described as "curdled". But I'll have to tell those later 'cause I only have fifteen minutes left and I need to plug in my portable USB thingy and print a critique before time is up.
I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully.
P.S.-I've been responding to comments in the comments themselves, just in case you haven't noticed.
I do have my computer and it connects to wireless internet, but I don't particularly want to pay to use the internet at any of the hot spots. My professor picks up someone else's wireless internet connection at her flat, and yesterday afternoon Jenn B. and I decided we were going to go over to Dr. C's house with our computers and use her internet for awhile. But when we got to her flat she wasn't home, so we decided to just sit on the curb outside and check to see if we could pick up a signal. And we could! So Jenn and I sat on the curb for half an hour using our computers until Dr. C and her daughters got home and let us come inside so we could quit looking like street urchins (very wealthy street urchins with Dell laptops). At one point a couple of the local police walked by and commented "That's a strange place to work" but once we explained what we were up to they just laughed at us and moved on. Jenn and I had a good laugh about the lengths we'll stoop to just to get free internet access. Ultimately the connection ended up being very weak, though, and I never could manage to stay connected long enough to post a blog entry, so Dr. C's flat will be a last resort from now on.
All of this has just been a very long winded intro to what I really wanted to say, which was that this morning Dr. C told us that she got us three grad students privileges to use the library at the Shakespeare Institute, a library that is open until 8:00 at night! And supposedly has a free wireless internet connection! And lets you print papers for free as opposed to the 15p a page that it costs at the public library. So hopefully that all actually works out and I'm able to blog more than once every two or three days.
Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened the past couple of days. For one thing, it finally stopped being super hot outside, thank god. Because did I mention that not only was our room hot, but that our shower wouldn't run cold water? For the first two days we were here our shower was only running water so hot that it was almost scalding, even when you placed it on the coldest possible setting. I have to say, I never thought I'd be complaining about the shower being too HOT. I'd be sweaty and gross in our hot room and want to take a cool refreshing shower, but the shower didn't even make me feel clean, just more hot and sweaty. It was Hell Room, seriously. Really cute Hell Room with a dormer window and my own little bed alcove, but Hell Room nonetheless. But then yesterday the weather got nice and cool and rainy and England-y like it's supposed to be, and I'm happily wearing a sweatshirt right now. And yesterday I also figured out that for some reason if you take a shower late at night you can actually get cool water for a few minutes before it goes back to attempting to melt my skin off. So living conditions have vastly improved.
On Monday night we saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Swan Theatre, and it was incredible. Seriously incredible. Definitely on the top ten list of all shows I've ever seen (and I've seen well over a hundred shows in my life at this point). It was done by a company from India, and less than half of the play was actually performed in English. The rest was done in seven different Indian dialects. So the language aspect was really interesting, and it was amazing how the language barrier wasn't actually a barrier to understanding at all. The staging was amazing, they had a massive vertical climbing wall that they used constantly, they climbed silk ropes hung from the ceiling, and the whole thing was very raw and sexual and passionate and just really fantastic. I joked to Amanda that I was going to entitle my critique "A Midsummer Night's Wet Dream" just to see Dr. C's reaction. Ha. It was sort of Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare. So cool!
Yesterday we had a voice lesson from the woman who is the head of Voice at the RSC, which was amazing. I got hands on attention from a woman who has given hands on training to all of the RSC actors! And the very first thing she said to me was, "You are a dancer, aren't you?" Ha. It's been five years since I did any sort of real dancing and my posture and stance still gives it away, apparently. And actually, all that muscle memory isn't really the best thing for vocal training, but what can you do? She taught us some interesting things and it was a fun session.
Then in the afternoon a woman came to show us all sorts of records from the Shakespeare archive. Not only did we get to look at stuff, we actually got to TOUCH stuff. I paged through a book of Stratford guild records from the 1400s. I held records concerning Shakespeare's finances in my hands. My very favorite thing was a note signed by Queen Elizabeth. I held a piece of paper signed by Elizabeth. It's sort of mind blowing. (She has the most awesome signature, by the way. Her Z has about six curlicues on the bottom. Very dramatic!)
This morning Paul and Stanley Wells lectured to us about the sonnets, which was really interesting, and this afternoon we're all walking out to Anne Hathaway's cottage, which should be fun, doing the same walk Shakespeare used to do when he'd go to court his wife.
Anyway, I have some funny stories, particularly about a show called EuroTrash that I watched with the Alexes last night (it was absolutely baffling, let me tell you) and about how certain people have willingly eaten yogurt described as "curdled". But I'll have to tell those later 'cause I only have fifteen minutes left and I need to plug in my portable USB thingy and print a critique before time is up.
I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully.
P.S.-I've been responding to comments in the comments themselves, just in case you haven't noticed.
Monday, June 12, 2006
From the library
Hey all. It's 1:3o in the afternoon right now and I have about twenty minutes to post from the Stratford public library. You can use the computers here and get a free hour of internet time. The only problem is there are only about twenty computers and it's hard to get time to use the computer unless you reserve it.
So Amanda, Jenn B. and I reserved computer time right after we got out of our morning class and then went shopping at H&M until it was time for us to come back to the library to use our computer reservations. Ah, H&M, how I love you. I don't plan to spend much money on clothes...actually, I don't plan to spend much money on ANYTHING, but H&M is just irresistable. I just bought the cutest dress for only £15. £££££. I dig the £ key! I might have to eventually break down and buy more short sleeved shirts, too, since I only brought five or six short-sleeved shirts, figuring it would be cool enough for light long-sleeved shirts most of the time. Why is the freakin' weather always out to get me here? Two summers ago when I was here I brought plenty of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and ended up having to buy a sweater and a heavy jacket because I ended up being too cold all the time. And so this time I came prepared for cold and it turns out my room is a sauna and it's hot and humid outside. Their unpredictable weather must be really good for the economy.
Anyway, today has been good so far. Marian, the lady who runs our B&B, is really sweet and she cooks a full English breakfast every morning. The amount of food she gave each of us was RIDICULOUS. Orange juice, a big pot of tea (in an Alice and Wonderland pot...it made me think of Matthew, he'd love it), an entire rack of different types of toasted bread, two eggs cooked however you want them, a piece of ham, a sausage link, half a cooked tomato, mushrooms, and a hash brown. And then on top of that you can help yourself to fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal. It sounds like an odd combination I suppose, but I personally am a huge fan of the English breakfast, especially when it's free (or not free, but pre-paid with my program fees, anyway). Also, this morning at breakfast I met the resident cat and he let me pet him for a while. He looks just like Jose in Cedric's body. He has the white mustache and everything!
This morning we met Paul, the director of the birthplace trust, and he gave us a syllabus. I'm still just utterly in awe of the people we're going to meet. This morning we had a lecture on Midsummer from Stanley Wells. He is THE Shakespeare guru of the world. Honestly, there's not a person alive right now who knows more about Shakespeare than he does. It's amazing to be learning from him, and to be able to say on my CV that I've studied with him.
Tonight we're going to see Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm so excited!
Oh, and guess what? We get to be on the BBC! Paul is doing a taped lecture for the BBC on Thursday and he invited us to be part of the audience. We're supposed to look very, very interested and take lots of notes to make him look good. Haha.
It's almost time for us to go back to classes. Today we'll learn about the library where we'll be doing our research and then we're touring Shakespeare's birthplace.
I'm sure it has come across pretty clear here, but I'm having a great time so far!
So Amanda, Jenn B. and I reserved computer time right after we got out of our morning class and then went shopping at H&M until it was time for us to come back to the library to use our computer reservations. Ah, H&M, how I love you. I don't plan to spend much money on clothes...actually, I don't plan to spend much money on ANYTHING, but H&M is just irresistable. I just bought the cutest dress for only £15. £££££. I dig the £ key! I might have to eventually break down and buy more short sleeved shirts, too, since I only brought five or six short-sleeved shirts, figuring it would be cool enough for light long-sleeved shirts most of the time. Why is the freakin' weather always out to get me here? Two summers ago when I was here I brought plenty of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and ended up having to buy a sweater and a heavy jacket because I ended up being too cold all the time. And so this time I came prepared for cold and it turns out my room is a sauna and it's hot and humid outside. Their unpredictable weather must be really good for the economy.
Anyway, today has been good so far. Marian, the lady who runs our B&B, is really sweet and she cooks a full English breakfast every morning. The amount of food she gave each of us was RIDICULOUS. Orange juice, a big pot of tea (in an Alice and Wonderland pot...it made me think of Matthew, he'd love it), an entire rack of different types of toasted bread, two eggs cooked however you want them, a piece of ham, a sausage link, half a cooked tomato, mushrooms, and a hash brown. And then on top of that you can help yourself to fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal. It sounds like an odd combination I suppose, but I personally am a huge fan of the English breakfast, especially when it's free (or not free, but pre-paid with my program fees, anyway). Also, this morning at breakfast I met the resident cat and he let me pet him for a while. He looks just like Jose in Cedric's body. He has the white mustache and everything!
This morning we met Paul, the director of the birthplace trust, and he gave us a syllabus. I'm still just utterly in awe of the people we're going to meet. This morning we had a lecture on Midsummer from Stanley Wells. He is THE Shakespeare guru of the world. Honestly, there's not a person alive right now who knows more about Shakespeare than he does. It's amazing to be learning from him, and to be able to say on my CV that I've studied with him.
Tonight we're going to see Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm so excited!
Oh, and guess what? We get to be on the BBC! Paul is doing a taped lecture for the BBC on Thursday and he invited us to be part of the audience. We're supposed to look very, very interested and take lots of notes to make him look good. Haha.
It's almost time for us to go back to classes. Today we'll learn about the library where we'll be doing our research and then we're touring Shakespeare's birthplace.
I'm sure it has come across pretty clear here, but I'm having a great time so far!
Sunday, June 11, 2006
In England!
Well, we made it. I'm in Stratford right now sitting in a Starbucks with Liz, paying for an hour of internet time. I kind of hate myself for sitting in Starbucks right now, but it's a Sunday night and this little town shuts down on Sunday evenings so there's really nowhere else to go anyway. Plus we ate at a Whetherspoons for dinner and you can't do that in the U.S., so I'm not totally being lame. I try to make a point of doing things you can't do in America when I'm abroad, but sometimes you just can't help it.
Anyway, our journey was long, long, LONG. I spent the night with Matthew on Friday night, didn't sleep at all, got on the plane to Toronto at 6:30 in the morning, got to Toronto at 10:30, and sat at the airport for HOURS. We had talked about maybe going into the city and doing something, but logistically it just would have been hard to do. We had bags with us, we weren't sure where to go even if we had left the airport, none of us had Canadian dollars and didn't really feel like exchanging money for just the afternoon. So we explored the airport. Thoroughly. Very exciting, let me tell you.
The airplane rides were both good. The plane from Houston to Toronto was awesome. Each person had their own TV screen on the back of the chair in front of them and could select from like, 18 movies, make playlists from all the airline radio stations, watch dozens of TV shows...I've never been on a plane with a selection like that before. So what did I watch? Eight Below. Yes, the dog sled movie. I thought it would be cute. And it was either that or Annie Hall, and it was way too early in the morning for Woody Allen. And it was cute. And then of course a couple of the dogs died, and there was this reunion at the end and I got all emotional thinking not of Cohen but of stupid Morty! The dogs reminded me of Morty and then I thought about him freezing in the snow and I cried on the airplane. I. Am. A. Loser. Thank God I had the whole row to myself and nobody could witness me crying over a Disney dog sled movie. After that I made a playlist that consisted of nothing but the same Panic! At the Disco song and some Madonna over and over and over again until we landed. Ha.
The flight from London to Toronto was seven hours long. Since by that point it was nighttime again I actually managed to sleep most of the flight. Given, it was a really short night since we were flying east and I probably only slept 4 or 5 hours of the flight. So basically what I'm saying is it's 5:30 on Sunday evening right now and 11:30 AM Texas time. And the last time I slept a full night was Thursday night. I did take a nap when we got to Stratford this afternoon, too, but damn, I'm going to sleep good tonight.
Anyway, I don't have much exciting to report yet. Our bed and breakfast seems fine. Liz, Amanda and I are sharing a good-sized room and it's cute. The only problem is that it's basically the attic of the building and there is no AC so it's freakin' hot in there even with the windows open. I'm hoping that the fact that it's almost 90 degrees here right now is just a fluke and we'll be getting some real England-y weather soon. I was prepared for chilly weather, I was not prepared for 90 degree heat.
Alright. Liz and I are sharing internet time so I'm gonna hand my computer over to her. I'm hoping to find a free internet connection at some point in the next couple of days 'cause I refuse to sit in Starbucks and do this more than once or twice during the whole trip.
So yes. I'm here, I'm safe, and so far all is well. I'll talk to you all again within the next few days I'm sure. Love to you all!
Anyway, our journey was long, long, LONG. I spent the night with Matthew on Friday night, didn't sleep at all, got on the plane to Toronto at 6:30 in the morning, got to Toronto at 10:30, and sat at the airport for HOURS. We had talked about maybe going into the city and doing something, but logistically it just would have been hard to do. We had bags with us, we weren't sure where to go even if we had left the airport, none of us had Canadian dollars and didn't really feel like exchanging money for just the afternoon. So we explored the airport. Thoroughly. Very exciting, let me tell you.
The airplane rides were both good. The plane from Houston to Toronto was awesome. Each person had their own TV screen on the back of the chair in front of them and could select from like, 18 movies, make playlists from all the airline radio stations, watch dozens of TV shows...I've never been on a plane with a selection like that before. So what did I watch? Eight Below. Yes, the dog sled movie. I thought it would be cute. And it was either that or Annie Hall, and it was way too early in the morning for Woody Allen. And it was cute. And then of course a couple of the dogs died, and there was this reunion at the end and I got all emotional thinking not of Cohen but of stupid Morty! The dogs reminded me of Morty and then I thought about him freezing in the snow and I cried on the airplane. I. Am. A. Loser. Thank God I had the whole row to myself and nobody could witness me crying over a Disney dog sled movie. After that I made a playlist that consisted of nothing but the same Panic! At the Disco song and some Madonna over and over and over again until we landed. Ha.
The flight from London to Toronto was seven hours long. Since by that point it was nighttime again I actually managed to sleep most of the flight. Given, it was a really short night since we were flying east and I probably only slept 4 or 5 hours of the flight. So basically what I'm saying is it's 5:30 on Sunday evening right now and 11:30 AM Texas time. And the last time I slept a full night was Thursday night. I did take a nap when we got to Stratford this afternoon, too, but damn, I'm going to sleep good tonight.
Anyway, I don't have much exciting to report yet. Our bed and breakfast seems fine. Liz, Amanda and I are sharing a good-sized room and it's cute. The only problem is that it's basically the attic of the building and there is no AC so it's freakin' hot in there even with the windows open. I'm hoping that the fact that it's almost 90 degrees here right now is just a fluke and we'll be getting some real England-y weather soon. I was prepared for chilly weather, I was not prepared for 90 degree heat.
Alright. Liz and I are sharing internet time so I'm gonna hand my computer over to her. I'm hoping to find a free internet connection at some point in the next couple of days 'cause I refuse to sit in Starbucks and do this more than once or twice during the whole trip.
So yes. I'm here, I'm safe, and so far all is well. I'll talk to you all again within the next few days I'm sure. Love to you all!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
All My Bags are NOT Packed
I haven't even remotely started packing, my apartment isn't clean, I don't have any of my animals' stuff packed up for them to spend three weeks at Chelsea's, and the load of laundry that includes a lot of the clothes I need to pack is in the washing machine as we speak. But somehow all of that is gonna get done by tomorrow afternoon, and then I'm outta here!
Chelsea's driving me to Houston, and then I'm spending the night with Matthew!!!! Yay Matthew!! I'm spending part of the night with Matthew, anyway, since we'll have to leave for the airport by 3:30 in the morning. I probably won't even sleep tomorrow night. I'm gonna be jet lagged and totally out of whack no matter what I do, so what difference does it make?
Anyway, I'm so excited now it's ridiculous. I'm starting to feel a bond with my classmates, that sort of inevitable bond that forms whenever a group is spending so many hours a day together, especially when they're doing emotional acting work, especially when they're traveling together. So I'm actually really excited about spending three more weeks with everyone (even though I realize from my last study abroad trip that spending three weeks together literally 24/7 is a very different thing than spending three to five hours a day together). And I think everyone else is feeling a connection forming, too. In our trip orientation today Dr. C. was saying that graduate students have to stay with the group all the time and can't go off on our own excursions (apparently there have been issues with grad students in the past thinking that they should have special privileges because we're not undergrads) and she said, "I don't think we'll have a problem with that, though, since you all have developed such a good ensemble feel already." And I joked, "What, you mean you're not sensing my elitist attitude? That's not coming through at all? I was trying so hard!" I have now been teasingly nicknamed Ashley "Coriolanus" D. Haha.
Anyway, I'm only really posting because I just had to post my horoscope for today. I'm not a big believer in astrology, but I do read my Google horoscope for fun every day and on days when it's especially good I choose to believe it. And today's was awesome:
"Finish up old emotional business while there's still time, for it's all about to change. Stick to your regular routine, however, until the action begins; it's the details now that will make or break the success of what is to come. The more you focus on what needs to be done today, the easier it will be tomorrow."
Something new is about to come along! Everything is about to change! How appropriate. And it's telling me to finish up old emotional business, which, honestly, is exactly what I've been doing the past few days anyway!
Like today I had a long conversation with my mom about Mike. I mentioned something he had said, and Mom said, "Oh, you two are talking again?" so I told her the whole story and about my worries about falling in love again and all of this stuff that I don't usually talk to her about. I don't like to talk to my parents much about any problems between me and Mike because I don't want them to form a negative opinion of him. I really do think he's always going to be in my life at least as a friend and I'd rather my parents see that as a positive than a negative. Still, today I told my mom a lot of stuff about Mike and Jenny that we hadn't really talked about before, and we talked about my feelings and how I've coped with everything. I feel like I came across as sort of emotional and still hung up on it all, which is weird because that tends to happen when I talk about it all when in actuality I feel pretty good about everything these days. But anyway, we talked about it all for a long time.
And then about an hour later I was in the laundry room (why is everything happening in the laundry room these days?) and my phone rang and it was Mike. Weird coincidence. So I talked to him for a while and he had big news as far as his relationship is concerned, news that I'm not gonna post here 'cause that's his business to share and not mine and it's all new and I know everything could still change in a second right now. But if/when he does go public with what he told me tonight and you all figure out what I'm cryptically alluding to here (and let me just say, your best guess is probably correct anyway) I'll say that my reaction to his news is to have no freakin' idea how to feel about it.
So I'm not going to worry about it right now. It could all change by tomorrow anyway so trying to figure out my feelings about it is a moot point until it becomes something definite.
Plus I'm going to ENGLAND in less than 48 hours. I have better things to think about.
So...I'll talk to you then!
Chelsea's driving me to Houston, and then I'm spending the night with Matthew!!!! Yay Matthew!! I'm spending part of the night with Matthew, anyway, since we'll have to leave for the airport by 3:30 in the morning. I probably won't even sleep tomorrow night. I'm gonna be jet lagged and totally out of whack no matter what I do, so what difference does it make?
Anyway, I'm so excited now it's ridiculous. I'm starting to feel a bond with my classmates, that sort of inevitable bond that forms whenever a group is spending so many hours a day together, especially when they're doing emotional acting work, especially when they're traveling together. So I'm actually really excited about spending three more weeks with everyone (even though I realize from my last study abroad trip that spending three weeks together literally 24/7 is a very different thing than spending three to five hours a day together). And I think everyone else is feeling a connection forming, too. In our trip orientation today Dr. C. was saying that graduate students have to stay with the group all the time and can't go off on our own excursions (apparently there have been issues with grad students in the past thinking that they should have special privileges because we're not undergrads) and she said, "I don't think we'll have a problem with that, though, since you all have developed such a good ensemble feel already." And I joked, "What, you mean you're not sensing my elitist attitude? That's not coming through at all? I was trying so hard!" I have now been teasingly nicknamed Ashley "Coriolanus" D. Haha.
Anyway, I'm only really posting because I just had to post my horoscope for today. I'm not a big believer in astrology, but I do read my Google horoscope for fun every day and on days when it's especially good I choose to believe it. And today's was awesome:
"Finish up old emotional business while there's still time, for it's all about to change. Stick to your regular routine, however, until the action begins; it's the details now that will make or break the success of what is to come. The more you focus on what needs to be done today, the easier it will be tomorrow."
Something new is about to come along! Everything is about to change! How appropriate. And it's telling me to finish up old emotional business, which, honestly, is exactly what I've been doing the past few days anyway!
Like today I had a long conversation with my mom about Mike. I mentioned something he had said, and Mom said, "Oh, you two are talking again?" so I told her the whole story and about my worries about falling in love again and all of this stuff that I don't usually talk to her about. I don't like to talk to my parents much about any problems between me and Mike because I don't want them to form a negative opinion of him. I really do think he's always going to be in my life at least as a friend and I'd rather my parents see that as a positive than a negative. Still, today I told my mom a lot of stuff about Mike and Jenny that we hadn't really talked about before, and we talked about my feelings and how I've coped with everything. I feel like I came across as sort of emotional and still hung up on it all, which is weird because that tends to happen when I talk about it all when in actuality I feel pretty good about everything these days. But anyway, we talked about it all for a long time.
And then about an hour later I was in the laundry room (why is everything happening in the laundry room these days?) and my phone rang and it was Mike. Weird coincidence. So I talked to him for a while and he had big news as far as his relationship is concerned, news that I'm not gonna post here 'cause that's his business to share and not mine and it's all new and I know everything could still change in a second right now. But if/when he does go public with what he told me tonight and you all figure out what I'm cryptically alluding to here (and let me just say, your best guess is probably correct anyway) I'll say that my reaction to his news is to have no freakin' idea how to feel about it.
So I'm not going to worry about it right now. It could all change by tomorrow anyway so trying to figure out my feelings about it is a moot point until it becomes something definite.
Plus I'm going to ENGLAND in less than 48 hours. I have better things to think about.
So...I'll talk to you then!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Now This Is Talent
So for one of my homework assignments tonight I had to write a sonnet. It was an exercise in making sure we understand things like simile, antithesis, oxymorons, alliteration, etc. Personally, I would much rather have labeled all of these things in one of Shakespeare's sonnets instead of having to make up one of my own, especially since I had to re-read Julius Caesar* tonight for our quiz tomorrow and I still have to label all of my operatives in my scene so I can work with my scene group tomorrow. Oh, and for Thursday we have to read both Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra for quizzes. That's a good four or five hours of reading, at least. In other words, there is a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done for class before Thursday, and the addition of having to write a sonnet on top of it all made me feel thisclose to panic.
*Incidentally, Julius Caesar may be the title of the play, but he's so not the main speaking character. Caesar dies in the third act, in case you don't remember this fact from sophomore English class. I sure didn't. So just in case you ever find yourself in a situation where a whole group of people is going to read the entirity of Julius Caesar aloud in one sitting and study it for a quiz (and really, I don't know why you'd ever find yourself in that situation, but just in case), it's actually a wise idea to volunteer to be Caesar. 'Cause he dies and then you get to chill for two acts. You definitely don't want to be Brutus or Cassius because they talk in massive 20+ line chunks throughout the whole damn play. Guess who Liz and I were? Yeah. I was smart enough not to pick Brutus (actually, I don't think Liz picked Brutus either, I think he was just the only major character left by the time it was her turn to choose) but I'd forgotten how major Cassius is. Freakin' Cassius.
So anyway, I was not thrilled about having to write a sonnet, but it turns out that it's pretty easy to churn out a sonnet in less than half an hour if you're not at all concerned with being clever. The result:
I hate the hot heat of a summer's day,
The pavement is like coals beneath the feet.
I wish the month of June would go away,
For I do so prefer the winter sleet.
The cloud that brings the rain is a kind friend,
It gives sweet respite from a sun like fire,
But all too soon the drenching showers end,
And dark sun once again provokes my ire.
To some a heaven, I do think it hell:
The buzz of bees, the whir of sprinklers, all.
How long I'll take the heat I cannot tell,
I cannot wait each day for night to fall.
But since the summer never will be cool,
I'll spend the next months lying by the pool.
I'm now fairly certain I have a promising career as a poet. Ire and fire? Pretty good, huh? Ha. Haha. Anyway, it includes all the stuff we needed to include (which is partly why it's so awful...the cloud is a kind friend...that's some brilliant personification right there) so I'm golden. The theme of the sonnet had to be summer. My professor didn't specify that it had to be a positive poem about summer, so here's hoping it's okay that it's full of hate. And I don't really hate summer, I just needed the alliteration I could get by writing hate, hot, and heat in the same line.
So yeah. I'll try to post at least one more time before I actually leave the country, but if I don't get the chance you can just admire my sonnet skills until I get time to update from Stratford.
P.S.-Hi Mom! (And Dad, if you're actually going to read this...)
*Incidentally, Julius Caesar may be the title of the play, but he's so not the main speaking character. Caesar dies in the third act, in case you don't remember this fact from sophomore English class. I sure didn't. So just in case you ever find yourself in a situation where a whole group of people is going to read the entirity of Julius Caesar aloud in one sitting and study it for a quiz (and really, I don't know why you'd ever find yourself in that situation, but just in case), it's actually a wise idea to volunteer to be Caesar. 'Cause he dies and then you get to chill for two acts. You definitely don't want to be Brutus or Cassius because they talk in massive 20+ line chunks throughout the whole damn play. Guess who Liz and I were? Yeah. I was smart enough not to pick Brutus (actually, I don't think Liz picked Brutus either, I think he was just the only major character left by the time it was her turn to choose) but I'd forgotten how major Cassius is. Freakin' Cassius.
So anyway, I was not thrilled about having to write a sonnet, but it turns out that it's pretty easy to churn out a sonnet in less than half an hour if you're not at all concerned with being clever. The result:
I hate the hot heat of a summer's day,
The pavement is like coals beneath the feet.
I wish the month of June would go away,
For I do so prefer the winter sleet.
The cloud that brings the rain is a kind friend,
It gives sweet respite from a sun like fire,
But all too soon the drenching showers end,
And dark sun once again provokes my ire.
To some a heaven, I do think it hell:
The buzz of bees, the whir of sprinklers, all.
How long I'll take the heat I cannot tell,
I cannot wait each day for night to fall.
But since the summer never will be cool,
I'll spend the next months lying by the pool.
I'm now fairly certain I have a promising career as a poet. Ire and fire? Pretty good, huh? Ha. Haha. Anyway, it includes all the stuff we needed to include (which is partly why it's so awful...the cloud is a kind friend...that's some brilliant personification right there) so I'm golden. The theme of the sonnet had to be summer. My professor didn't specify that it had to be a positive poem about summer, so here's hoping it's okay that it's full of hate. And I don't really hate summer, I just needed the alliteration I could get by writing hate, hot, and heat in the same line.
So yeah. I'll try to post at least one more time before I actually leave the country, but if I don't get the chance you can just admire my sonnet skills until I get time to update from Stratford.
P.S.-Hi Mom! (And Dad, if you're actually going to read this...)
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