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!