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.