I've prided myself on being pretty consistent about my once-a-week responsibilities to this public journal of my life, but I'm going to go ahead a cut myself some slack for my recent negligence. The last 2 weeks have been nothing less than the most overwhelmingly amazing and exhaustingly wonderful of my life.
The excitement started 2 Mondays ago, when I, very skillfully, found free tickets to see "Hay Fever" by Noel Coward. In my excitement, I neglected (a theme of my last few weeks) to notice that the theater was located in Kingston, a 40 minute tube+20 minute bus ride away. Did we let that stop us? Never. We hurried there after school and made it in plenty of time to see the show, which, while not amazing, didn't cost us a penny - so it was pretty darn good. We even got out in enough time to cross the street to Wagamamas and have a delicious 10pm dinner - very European of us, if I might say so myself. Classes went along as usual Tuesday and Wendesday, and then it was time to start my jet-setting adventure back to the US to celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of my beautiful baby sister, who, as far as I'm concerned, will never be older than 8 years old.
There had been so much anticipation leading up to this weekend, starting over a year ago when we realized that the Bat Mitzvah would coinside beautifully with my semester across-the-ocean. All of my hesitations, fears and jokes that I wouldn't be attending ended up being totally moot when the time came to be home and celebrate - and it was quite the celebration. Rather than go on in boring detail about the festivities of the weekend, I'll just say that there would be no better reason to do the 7 hour flight (with a broken video set...) than to surround myself with my wonderful friends and family and beam over how grown-up my little 8 year old really is. Mazel Tov again, Mira T - you really blew me away.
ANYWAY... I got back into Heathrow at 630 am with just enough time to tube back to my dorm, drop off my bags and get back on the tube to make my 10 am class. My body was less than thrilled with me that day, and while fighting back fits of narcolepsy during classes, I managed to not only survive, but get my grocery shopping and laundry done too! This week was also tough because we had the end of our Jacobean unit presentations of Friday, where my group performed The Changeling and got to see what the other class had been up to with their production of Tis Pity She's A Whore. While the shows both came together in the end, and it was great to finally see the other class' work, it was definitely a trying experience for me. As a wise woman said to me "learn from your experience" and "Move on - it's what you do, it's something to learn from." She's a pretty smart lady and, in this case, she was very right. Theatre doesn't click for every person every time, but it most certainly always teaches you something new, and I'm okay with that.
This weekend has also been quite lovely with my friend Laura coming in from Amsterdam to visit and finally making my way to the Victoria & Albert museum with her. We also got to celebrate Halloween a bit early leaving me with Sunday to readjust, recenter and refocus for the next chapter of my LAMDA career. We're moving onto Shakespearean comedies tomorrow and, wouldn't you know it, my class is doing Much Ado About Nothing, a play I hold quite near and dear to my heart already. Now it's time to gear up for something new and keep the momentum up... we're all a bit tired and a bit over-worked, but I can't wait to see what happens this time, an experience I've named "Much Ado: Part Two" I'll keep you posted!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
I'm Auditioning for the Role of Tarzan
So... what new London experiences did I have this past week? Well, I got to see Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 at the Globe, attended the closing-night cast party afterwards, met famous English actor David Suchet, and got to spend 4.5 hours in a London A&E.
An A&E is like the ER, only it is called "Accidents & Emergencies" - which, in my opinion, is probably a much better title. It all started about 2 weeks ago, at this point, when I started having this really terrible pain in the ball of my left foot. I ignored it for the first week, which turned out to be a terrible idea because it only started hurting more, so last Saturday my wonderful family-away-from-family, The Mogilner's, picked me up from my dorm and took to me the hospital to get it checked out. Turns out, it's a stress fracture of the first metatarsal, but on that day I felt as if I had been told that I was going to have to have my foot amputated. Was it me being overly dramatic...? What else is new? Regardless, I walked (hobbled) away with a tubie sock (much like an ace bandage) and orders to take paracetemol and rest. Not my favorite way to spend a weekend.
But now - 1 full week after dealing with it, things are going a lot better. I've had to sit out of my movement classes, which is a bummer, but it turns out that ignoring a problem isn't actually the best way to make it go away. I'm confident that I won't be out of commission for as long as was originally anticipated and I will make damn sure that I don't get left behind because of it - so I'm going to be fine.
We went to a show on Monday at the National Theatre called "Danton's Death", which seemed to me a lot like Les Mis without singing and a rotating stage. The theater, however, was a spectacle in and of itself because of its size. It felt like a Roman amphitheater and fit, what had to be, at least 1,000 people. There performance was not without its high points, including the end where the made decapitations by guillotine look creepily real. It was also a chance for us to scope out the production of Hamlet that is happening at the National and figure out how to get tickets - so not a total loss.
This weekend has been about as unproductive as the week, but yesterday morning I decided to go on an adventure to the Saatchi Gallery, because it is only a 10 minute walk from my dorm and there's no excuse for why I hadn't gone yet. It's a really wonderful museum and I had a lovely time just meandering around the 13 galleries - especially gallery 5, which had a hot pink screen print of Cher as Che Guevara - a total win for the day. There is also this really great food market right outside of the entrance and it has vendors with cookies, cheeses, pastas, meats, cupcakes, pasties and much more, so I met up with a few people for lunch there - which was really nice until London decided to perpetuate its stereotype of bipolar weather and it began pouring. Good thing I could spend the rest of my day indoors before venturing out to Brick Lane for dinner and finding the yummiest Indian food I have found in London so far! Very successful day.
Not sure exactly what's on the roster for today, but it looks beautiful outside at the moment so it's probably best to capitalize on that. This coming week is going to be crazy because I'm flying home Thursday for Mira's Bat Mitzvah, and back again on Monday morning right before class, which will be crazy/hectic/exhausting/wonderful!
So all in all, with foot pains, massive theaters, outdoor markets and lots of rain - I'm still loving this city as much as I ever have. I've learned how easy it is to get caught up in things very quickly, and in some cases that could be a bad thing, but as far as milking London for all it's worth - I'll take being caught-up over left-out every time!
An A&E is like the ER, only it is called "Accidents & Emergencies" - which, in my opinion, is probably a much better title. It all started about 2 weeks ago, at this point, when I started having this really terrible pain in the ball of my left foot. I ignored it for the first week, which turned out to be a terrible idea because it only started hurting more, so last Saturday my wonderful family-away-from-family, The Mogilner's, picked me up from my dorm and took to me the hospital to get it checked out. Turns out, it's a stress fracture of the first metatarsal, but on that day I felt as if I had been told that I was going to have to have my foot amputated. Was it me being overly dramatic...? What else is new? Regardless, I walked (hobbled) away with a tubie sock (much like an ace bandage) and orders to take paracetemol and rest. Not my favorite way to spend a weekend.
But now - 1 full week after dealing with it, things are going a lot better. I've had to sit out of my movement classes, which is a bummer, but it turns out that ignoring a problem isn't actually the best way to make it go away. I'm confident that I won't be out of commission for as long as was originally anticipated and I will make damn sure that I don't get left behind because of it - so I'm going to be fine.
We went to a show on Monday at the National Theatre called "Danton's Death", which seemed to me a lot like Les Mis without singing and a rotating stage. The theater, however, was a spectacle in and of itself because of its size. It felt like a Roman amphitheater and fit, what had to be, at least 1,000 people. There performance was not without its high points, including the end where the made decapitations by guillotine look creepily real. It was also a chance for us to scope out the production of Hamlet that is happening at the National and figure out how to get tickets - so not a total loss.
This weekend has been about as unproductive as the week, but yesterday morning I decided to go on an adventure to the Saatchi Gallery, because it is only a 10 minute walk from my dorm and there's no excuse for why I hadn't gone yet. It's a really wonderful museum and I had a lovely time just meandering around the 13 galleries - especially gallery 5, which had a hot pink screen print of Cher as Che Guevara - a total win for the day. There is also this really great food market right outside of the entrance and it has vendors with cookies, cheeses, pastas, meats, cupcakes, pasties and much more, so I met up with a few people for lunch there - which was really nice until London decided to perpetuate its stereotype of bipolar weather and it began pouring. Good thing I could spend the rest of my day indoors before venturing out to Brick Lane for dinner and finding the yummiest Indian food I have found in London so far! Very successful day.
Not sure exactly what's on the roster for today, but it looks beautiful outside at the moment so it's probably best to capitalize on that. This coming week is going to be crazy because I'm flying home Thursday for Mira's Bat Mitzvah, and back again on Monday morning right before class, which will be crazy/hectic/exhausting/wonderful!
So all in all, with foot pains, massive theaters, outdoor markets and lots of rain - I'm still loving this city as much as I ever have. I've learned how easy it is to get caught up in things very quickly, and in some cases that could be a bad thing, but as far as milking London for all it's worth - I'll take being caught-up over left-out every time!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Uncle Bill
Stratford-Upon-Avon was home to William Shakespeare. And that's about it. It's funny to think about what the town would be like without the Twelfth Night Cafe or Desdemona Diamonds, but thankfully for them, they'll never have to know. Regardless of how tiny the town is, we actually had a great time just being together, and goodness knows I love being in a hotel.
When we got off of the bus after riding 2 hours through the beautiful English countryside we had a few hours to explore the city and check into Ye Olde Holiday Inn before a drama workshop scheduled at a church on the other side of town. Little did we know it would only take 15 minutes to get to the other side of town, so we had plenty of time to take in the streets an then some. The workshop was our only scheduled activity on Wednesday so left to our own devices we wandered around a bit more before stumbling on Hathaway's Tea Room for traditional afternoon tea and scones. Had we known the buffet that we would be treated to for the next two nights and mornings we may have skipped out on the scones, but it didn't stop us from eating like it had been months since we had last seen food. We ended the night in a good ole English pub with every person in the group, plus our 2 chaperons and professor that came with us. It's a good thing that the entire population of Strtford is over the age of 86, so there wasn't anyone else around to bother.
The next day was all-tours, all the time. We started out at Anne Hathaway's house about 3 miles outside of the town, followed by a very modern new audio/visual museum at Shakespeare's birthplace. We really lucked out with beautiful weather on our trip, so after we finished the tour of the house we sat in the courtyard and 2 actresses, dressed in Elizabethan clothes performed 3 scenes from shows that we randomly called out. These women could literally pull out a scene from any show we called out (they struggled a bit with Cymbaline, so we moved onto Midsummer - it was very kind of us), we were all so jealous of how much they knew that we had to leave before we all started feeling bad about our inability to learn our scenes in less than a week.
The last two stops of the day were the original sight of Shakespeare's house, which had actually been leveled, so it's just an archelogical dig of sorts, and finally, Shakespeare's gravesite. It was a lot of Bard but when we made our way back to the hotel we had an hour and a half before dinner and somehow managed to find the latest episodes of Modern Family among the 8 channels we had at our disposal - the happiness I felt was almost comparable to how I felt the first time I stepped into the Globe. Almost. The night went off without any major events and the next morning we packed our bags, hoarded what we could from the breakfast buffet and headed back to good old London Town.
We're scheduled to meet David Suchet in an hour and then off to the Globe again for Henry IV: Part 1. It's been a long couple of days and the thought of standing outside for 3 hours tonight is a bit unnerving, but to be honest, I really can't complain.
When we got off of the bus after riding 2 hours through the beautiful English countryside we had a few hours to explore the city and check into Ye Olde Holiday Inn before a drama workshop scheduled at a church on the other side of town. Little did we know it would only take 15 minutes to get to the other side of town, so we had plenty of time to take in the streets an then some. The workshop was our only scheduled activity on Wednesday so left to our own devices we wandered around a bit more before stumbling on Hathaway's Tea Room for traditional afternoon tea and scones. Had we known the buffet that we would be treated to for the next two nights and mornings we may have skipped out on the scones, but it didn't stop us from eating like it had been months since we had last seen food. We ended the night in a good ole English pub with every person in the group, plus our 2 chaperons and professor that came with us. It's a good thing that the entire population of Strtford is over the age of 86, so there wasn't anyone else around to bother.
The next day was all-tours, all the time. We started out at Anne Hathaway's house about 3 miles outside of the town, followed by a very modern new audio/visual museum at Shakespeare's birthplace. We really lucked out with beautiful weather on our trip, so after we finished the tour of the house we sat in the courtyard and 2 actresses, dressed in Elizabethan clothes performed 3 scenes from shows that we randomly called out. These women could literally pull out a scene from any show we called out (they struggled a bit with Cymbaline, so we moved onto Midsummer - it was very kind of us), we were all so jealous of how much they knew that we had to leave before we all started feeling bad about our inability to learn our scenes in less than a week.
The last two stops of the day were the original sight of Shakespeare's house, which had actually been leveled, so it's just an archelogical dig of sorts, and finally, Shakespeare's gravesite. It was a lot of Bard but when we made our way back to the hotel we had an hour and a half before dinner and somehow managed to find the latest episodes of Modern Family among the 8 channels we had at our disposal - the happiness I felt was almost comparable to how I felt the first time I stepped into the Globe. Almost. The night went off without any major events and the next morning we packed our bags, hoarded what we could from the breakfast buffet and headed back to good old London Town.
We're scheduled to meet David Suchet in an hour and then off to the Globe again for Henry IV: Part 1. It's been a long couple of days and the thought of standing outside for 3 hours tonight is a bit unnerving, but to be honest, I really can't complain.
Monday, October 4, 2010
How Time Flies
Another week, another post. I have officially made it through a month of drama school and I feel crazier already.
We started our Jacobean unit on Monday and found out that our class would be performing "The Changeling" by Thomas Middleton. It took 7 days and countless readings, but we finally got cast, and wouldn't you know it - I'm playing a boy! And not only that, the comic relief! You can take the girl out of comedies... But it's great. My part is Jasperino, the silly servant who saves the day (not actually, but that's how I'd like to think of him), and the play is totally new to me and a really good dramatic piece. It's nice to start working on something a bit more concrete now that we're seemingly past our introduction stage. Who knows what I'll be saying in a week when It's time to be off-book, but for now, it's good.
Another busy week of school and such, but Wednesday brought an unexpected early end to my school day (by that, I mean, I expected to get out at 9pm but instead I got out at 5:30pm), so a few of us rushed over to Covent Garden and bought tickets to see "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett. It's a one-man show starring Michael Gambon (of Dumbeldore #2 fame) and it was possibly one of the most riveting pieces of the theatre that I have ever been able to see. Granted, it was Beckett, so there was a lot of silence and a lot of repetition, but for 50 minutes I was able to do nothing else but stare at this man on stage, eagerly awaiting his next move. I couldn't believe how into it I was and how quickly it was over, but it totally convinced me that strong theatre does not necessarily mean long theatre.
The next night was another theatre extravaganza as we headed back to The Globe to see "The Merry Wives of Windsor". It was a play that I wasn't very familiar with going into, but the cast was great, the story accessible and I am so pleased with the tradition of ending every show at the Globe with a full-cast song and dance number! We alll left with huge smiles on our faces and, for me, it was really amazing to see a Shakespeare play in the Globe for the first time.
My friend from GW was in this weekend to visit around London and it was a great excuse to go and do all of the touristy things that I have been wanting to do for a while but that most of my friends have been to before. On Saturday we headed to Russel Square to the British Museum and it was quite interesting until the fire alarm went off and we were kindly escorted out of the building. From there we headed, in very overcast rainy weather, to Tower Bridge and did the walk across, only to walk back and hop on the tube towards Mansion House, i.e. The Globe and the Tate Modern. I have been talking about going to the Tate Modern pretty much since I arrived and am very glad I can finally say I went inside! It's really overwhelming based on just how much there is to see, but I got to spend a solid hour in 1 exhibit before we headed over to meet friends for dinner at Wagamamas, a VERY yummy noodle place that has yet to make it over to the States. I will begin writing letters to the company immediately to correct this.
To continue our whirlwind London experience, the next day we went to Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery, and perused most of the 17th and 18th centuries, in art-form, of course. It's a huge museum and nearly impossible to take-in in just one day, but I thought we did pretty well, and we rewarded ourselves by walking over to Covent Garden Markets. We intended to find crepes, what we had been craving pretty much all day, but were totally side-tracked by a street performer who was fully equipped with a mic-pack and a 6-foot unicycle. Needless to say, we stuck around for the end of his show and rewarded ourselves with crepes afterwards. It was a great weekend.
And now I'm back to school, only an abridged version because we have our trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon this Wednesday to Friday, which should be really fun. It will be a nice chance to all be together in a more relaxed environment, and even though the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is closed (tear, tear), I'm sure it will be a fabulous trip for us, an a needed break from our 50+ hour weeks.
In the wake of the 1 month mark and my dash home drawing nearer, I constantly have to remind myself that this is really my life. Sometimes it feels like everything is a blurred montage of classes, shows and food with sleep showing up wherever it can squeeze itself in. That's not a totally terrible thing, just a reality check. There are plenty of times when I'd like nothing more than to wave the white flag and tell the world that I can't do one more sit up, or roll-up or anything-up, but then I remember that this crazy thing is actually what I want to be doing. I was hoping to use this trip as a guide in order to know whether or not I am really ready to relinquish any sense of stability in my life and give into the insanity that is being in this theatre-world. It may be a bit early to say that I've made any final decisions, but, I'm getting pretty close - and it feels good.
We started our Jacobean unit on Monday and found out that our class would be performing "The Changeling" by Thomas Middleton. It took 7 days and countless readings, but we finally got cast, and wouldn't you know it - I'm playing a boy! And not only that, the comic relief! You can take the girl out of comedies... But it's great. My part is Jasperino, the silly servant who saves the day (not actually, but that's how I'd like to think of him), and the play is totally new to me and a really good dramatic piece. It's nice to start working on something a bit more concrete now that we're seemingly past our introduction stage. Who knows what I'll be saying in a week when It's time to be off-book, but for now, it's good.
Another busy week of school and such, but Wednesday brought an unexpected early end to my school day (by that, I mean, I expected to get out at 9pm but instead I got out at 5:30pm), so a few of us rushed over to Covent Garden and bought tickets to see "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett. It's a one-man show starring Michael Gambon (of Dumbeldore #2 fame) and it was possibly one of the most riveting pieces of the theatre that I have ever been able to see. Granted, it was Beckett, so there was a lot of silence and a lot of repetition, but for 50 minutes I was able to do nothing else but stare at this man on stage, eagerly awaiting his next move. I couldn't believe how into it I was and how quickly it was over, but it totally convinced me that strong theatre does not necessarily mean long theatre.
The next night was another theatre extravaganza as we headed back to The Globe to see "The Merry Wives of Windsor". It was a play that I wasn't very familiar with going into, but the cast was great, the story accessible and I am so pleased with the tradition of ending every show at the Globe with a full-cast song and dance number! We alll left with huge smiles on our faces and, for me, it was really amazing to see a Shakespeare play in the Globe for the first time.
My friend from GW was in this weekend to visit around London and it was a great excuse to go and do all of the touristy things that I have been wanting to do for a while but that most of my friends have been to before. On Saturday we headed to Russel Square to the British Museum and it was quite interesting until the fire alarm went off and we were kindly escorted out of the building. From there we headed, in very overcast rainy weather, to Tower Bridge and did the walk across, only to walk back and hop on the tube towards Mansion House, i.e. The Globe and the Tate Modern. I have been talking about going to the Tate Modern pretty much since I arrived and am very glad I can finally say I went inside! It's really overwhelming based on just how much there is to see, but I got to spend a solid hour in 1 exhibit before we headed over to meet friends for dinner at Wagamamas, a VERY yummy noodle place that has yet to make it over to the States. I will begin writing letters to the company immediately to correct this.
To continue our whirlwind London experience, the next day we went to Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery, and perused most of the 17th and 18th centuries, in art-form, of course. It's a huge museum and nearly impossible to take-in in just one day, but I thought we did pretty well, and we rewarded ourselves by walking over to Covent Garden Markets. We intended to find crepes, what we had been craving pretty much all day, but were totally side-tracked by a street performer who was fully equipped with a mic-pack and a 6-foot unicycle. Needless to say, we stuck around for the end of his show and rewarded ourselves with crepes afterwards. It was a great weekend.
And now I'm back to school, only an abridged version because we have our trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon this Wednesday to Friday, which should be really fun. It will be a nice chance to all be together in a more relaxed environment, and even though the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is closed (tear, tear), I'm sure it will be a fabulous trip for us, an a needed break from our 50+ hour weeks.
In the wake of the 1 month mark and my dash home drawing nearer, I constantly have to remind myself that this is really my life. Sometimes it feels like everything is a blurred montage of classes, shows and food with sleep showing up wherever it can squeeze itself in. That's not a totally terrible thing, just a reality check. There are plenty of times when I'd like nothing more than to wave the white flag and tell the world that I can't do one more sit up, or roll-up or anything-up, but then I remember that this crazy thing is actually what I want to be doing. I was hoping to use this trip as a guide in order to know whether or not I am really ready to relinquish any sense of stability in my life and give into the insanity that is being in this theatre-world. It may be a bit early to say that I've made any final decisions, but, I'm getting pretty close - and it feels good.
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