List of the Last Week
(Boo hoo bye bye BADA... badly babbling...)
1. Let's talk about Saturdays.
I completely missed writing mainly anything about our Saturday in Stratford. Oops.
Let's just say there are about 60 beautiful pictures of flowers coming Facebook's way. Thanks, (the real, not Northwestern) Shakespeare Garden! Oh, and there were, like, 5 Ariels in The Tempest and Miranda still wasn't important... ouch. It's the most interesting she's ever been (she had short hair, wowza!) but, low and behold, you can't change her lines.
Last Saturday, though, is a day for which I already wrote a journal entry. Stop it. I know, I wrote something down. In a journal. For my own personal sake, and not for the entire world to see online. Private conventions, astounding. As lovely as it would be for me to say, "yes, I am going to keep it to myself, in my journal, where I can smell the ink from my USS Steelworkers Scholarship fancy pen and marvel at how I managed to write in wide-rule...", I could care less. So, here it is:
8/5/12
Unfortunate Occurrences of Oxford
(meaning/and London)
(from Sat 8/4 and Sun 8/5)
1. No student rate for Danielle and Elizabeth on the Oxford Tube to London because of mean angry bus driver hard-core checking experiation dates on college IDs. Poop!
2. No Nandinos for Elizabeth. :( (I, on the other hand, received said Nandino's meal with bottomless frozen yogurt. Score, self.)
3. Counting change to give to the taxi guy? Better watch out-- he'll hike up the price! Paid by the SECOND.
4. GARFUNKLE'S. Worst European chain restaurant experience EVER.
- No waitresses seem to understand English here
- No water refills
- No bun? = NO food (sorry, gluten-free girls)
- No coleslaw (with the meal that came with coleslaw)
- No fast service (clearly just means slow service. great syntax, Anna)
- No happy campers!
5. Out of underwear, forgetting to hit "Start" on the washer after 40 minutes of it being there...
(I don't think anyone actually wants the story on this one, but it's there, so I'm honoring me previously thinking it was important.)
6. The one time this week I go to run? RAIN.
That's right. Henry V at THE GLOBE and One Man, Two Guvnors-- the Olivier and Tony Award winning Best Play-- 2nd row. Just... wow. I don't care how dreary that English sky was... I don't care that I stood for over 3 hours straight to watch a history play... because darn it Henry V is GOOD. It is FUNNY. I am the ONLY person from Northwestern who wanted to see it and I would have gone by mySELF if I hadn't have found others. But I did. Thank goodness.
The Globe Theatre:
1. 5 pound tickets to be a groundling. Let me rephrase: 5 pounds to see a brilliantly performed classic by the best of the best in the actual manner that a Shakespearean play would've been done in Shakespeare's time IN the theater they would've performed it in.
2. It rains. You deal with it.
3. Stage fog? NO, real smoke! From hanging fire balls!
4. You can buy Folio copies of all the plays. Separately. How beautiful and convenient.
5. The same actor who plays Henry in Henry IV parts 1 and 2 might come back to play Henry in Henry V... and if he does... it is a gift for all. Namely, it is a gift for all females. Namely, I want to marry him. Jamie Parker is 'bold and enthralling'... 'startlingly good'... 'an all conquering Henry'... 'a vibrant evening'... a 'regal performance'... (those may be reviews for the show itself, but I would like to single them out as about him, if I may, as he deserves praise for simply standing there... owning everything).
6. Everything is just so... real.
One Man, Two Guvnors:
1. We all got soooo played. I won't give away the jokes, the playing, the way we got fooled... but let's just say the play did it's JOB.
2. The Craze = an incredible (and incredibly cute in a pinch-them kind of cute that only young guys in 60's suits playing upbeat rock-folk can have) opening and inter-scene musical act. They were right in front of us, as we were in the 2nd row... the eye contact... was there.
3. Funniest play I've ever seen ever.
4. The theatre looked oddly like the Lorain Palace? I know, please someone from Ohio kick me. But if you added, like, mezzanine and balcony seating and booths, etc. to the Palace... it could be something. (I'm done.)
Hey, I've got a lot of lists going on!
Also, in other "why Shakespeare, why?" news:
David Farr, the director of the Royal Shakespeare production of The Tempest that we saw in Statford, answered the question on all of our minds: "As the only female character written in the The Tempest, what weight do you feel she carries, if any at all?"
Naturally, I was the person who asked this question.
It has been plaguing me for years.
But, nonetheless, after years of struggle, it has finally been answered: "Actually, I find her to be the least interesting character".
Weight of a million shipwrecked ships, lifted off my shoulders.
His explanation: You have to just go with her natural vacancy/blankness/naivete, BUT you can't mock it. Ferdinand and her love is refreshing for
a. Audience-- it's a slow play, especially at the beginning
b. Shakespeare-- it's a knotty, heavy plot that needs something beautiful and attractive, i.e. an old man (Shakespeare and Prospero) looking back on the beauty of young love
Their love is not, as it may read, about physical beauty. It wouldn't have mattered what they looked like. Ferdinand, he says, is also boring, but he at least just lost his father. (Thank goodness, am I right?) He is full of grief, his heart and soul are open wide. Miranda, in addition, has never seen another human in her life. It would not have mattered a single bit if they were actually the god and goddess they call each other.
Anyways, that was refreshing. David Farr is one of the coolest director's I've ever heard speak, so I'd suggest lookin' out for his stuff, aka, yeah just fly to Europe! What! Yeah!
Here is my last BADA-written list of random thoughts, lessons, and aneurisms to hold you over until I reach either London, Paris, or wherever the heck I'm going to end up eventually:
1. I currently now have 10 mini-boxes of cereal hoarded in my room in preparation for fending for myself next week.
2. My apple hoard is slowly diminishing! AH!
3. I never explained COPA: it's a classy bar where on normal weekend nights skankily or classily clad women arrive in high heels and dresses, men in suits, and both in fancy cars, stopped by bouncers at the door. Loud and pleasant music from the inside floods out into the street, colored lights flash... and then... you see... that it's really just a restaurant during the day and week. But, that doesn't stop Juli, Josh, and me from pursuing the glorious COPA "club" for a week and insisting we watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies there. It turns out many many many a people from BADA had the same idea, so here we all are, dressed up, watchin' the opening ceremonies basically without any sound, sipping my first ever 21-year-old cocktail (the drink was just born, I swear, not it's real age) (also the drink had, I believe, approximately .0000000000237% alcohol in it, thank you very much safety and health), and COPA is all that it needed to be-- nothing at all like we thought, but wonderful and classy in its own special way that night.
4. Midsummer Night's Dream is a raunchy-raunch little play! It's gettin' hot in Oxford!
5. I should look at BRITISH monologue books, not already-checked-out-by-NU-kids-hundreds-of-times USA ones!
6. I currently have plans/hopes and dreams to do all of the following over Christmas Break:
a. Fly back here to see Viva Forever! A New Musical about the Spice Girls
b. Fly to LA to see what that is -- and have a sleepover with my dear friends Lindsey and Gabe!
c. Get my wisdom teeth out (that's definitely the "plan" of this bunch)
7. Our last masterclass teacher (actor Brian Cox)'s advice = LEARN THE LINES. Just like John Barton...
8. I am dying without peanut butter.
9. You don't need public transportation to do London! Walking is good and refreshing, humans.
10. WHY? WELL... BECAUSE THOSE OF US WHO CHOSE TO DO THIS WERE THE ONES WHO ALSO GOT TO...SEEEEEEEE....AN OLYMPIC EVENT!!
AHHHH! 9:15 am; a silent, calm, and empty street filled only with streams of steady Olympic vehicles, unknown but still probably exciting people getting out of these cars into the massive and gorgeous hotels on the street; and barricades. The barricades, we can tell, lead to something... our eyes follow them... we see people against rails put up on the street, flags flying, suddenly people cheering, a megaphone sounding.... and HERE THEY COME! Olympian gods. The greatest legs we've ever seen. And I cheered for USA twice! And got it on my camera! Gah, such a tourist--- NO. Such a HUMAN BEING. Because I am an inhabitant of this earth who loves the Olympics, gosh darn it! How is that not exciting?!
This was all too upsetting for the Michael, Juli, and Josh crew who had actually mapped out and planned how they were going to see the race... oops. :(
As this post has gone on, on, on, and on, I shall commence. But please wipe the tears from you eyes and realize, "hey. It's been a great, riveting four weeks of only 6 semi-interesting blog posts from a girl complaining about trivial things in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I enjoyed parts of it, but I was getting a little tired of that. I'm OK."
And I'll finish (until next time, muahaha) with these thoughts on BADA:
I have learned a million things about myself as both a person, an actress, and a performer. I know myself better, or worse, you can say, from being pushed both in and out of class. I have met and befriended people from different areas of the country, different schools, and even my own school that I would have never really had the opportunity to bond with otherwise. There are people here not even from NU that I will want to stay in touch with as much as I can. We have fall breaks planned (from those that have fall breaks), yo! Equally as important, I've learned I can be funny even just a little bit and it is in my own way, as myself, and I can own that. The most important lesson I can take away is to live in myself: accept and embrace my true personality, use what's already funny about me and just "eat shit" sometimes to be my own clown, don't punch people with fake confidence because I have enough energy in me already, take on roles that are scary because they are me, take the time to think truthfully about what I like and can use about myself and what should honestly be altered, and give myself permission to literally live with myself as a hermit because either I'm writing or I just don't like people because I'm in too many rehearsals. Long-windedly, the same focus on "me", "self" has been made by many and most of the masterclass and faculty teachers and speakers. Of course, some butt heads. A lot of our teachers don't teach nearly even in the same ballpark as each other, and they have crazily different views about how to approach Shakespeare or acting in general. Still, everyone seems to agree that it all starts with yourself and knowing yourself, as well as how you react with the world around you. An actor has to live-- within themselves and as a sponge to and a catalyst for the rest of the world.
Blah, yes, pull out the tissues... I think it's interesting and you do, too. I clearly paid thousands of dollars for it, so it better be worth my time to spew!
There's so much more you guys don't know, so many stories and lessons and acting tips and Shakespearean facts that I wish to share with you, but, ah. Good countryman. Alas, thou didst not pay me hundreds upon hundreds to attend this rigorous institute of higher theatrical training. So... you know, it's just how Henry VI says. "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." Out, damn spot! Hence!
*Addendum:
Expect blogs filled with only the most unexpected and unplanned adventures with both Ellie and Jordan, famed members of the glorious Henry Godinez class of acting at Northwestern University. Ellie is a life-saver with a very, very kind London-aboding uncle, so let's cross our fingers I can type somewhere in that haven! (I know you're fingers are already knotted.) Jordan and I, however, are... standing-by, as we do flights... unknown where exactly we are going and staying yet besides one day in Paris BUT that is what we lucky and trained children of airline step-parents do. We are crafty (also because we are on Purple Crayon) and we shall conquer Europe!
*Extra Addendum:
Let's not talk about my typos.
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