Last Post from London!

Only in London can you celebrate a holiday honoring a TERRORIST! Seriously thought the 5^th of November was Guy Fawke’s Day, which celebrates when Guy Fawke’s and his buds unsuccessfully tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Now the celebrate similarly to 4^th of July, with fireworks! So we wanted to spend the holiday the way the natives do. We attempted to get out to these big fireworks, but this is when public transportation fails. The tube was so crowded we couldn’t even get on it. So we got on a bus that got stuck in traffic while the fireworks started above us. So we used our own two feet. The fireworks were good (from where we were standing), but not as good as 4^th of July American fireworks!

Another place I visited was Royal Albert Hall.

It’s basically a famous concert hall with a giant statue of King Albert opposite of it. It was originally created for the Great Exhibition that displayed the greatness of the British Empire back in the day.

Me and Kelsey took a tour of the Globe too. We had been there weeks ago when we were back in Stratford but not really gotten to see everything in it. We got to walk on all the levels of the theatre and we learned that you never refer to Macbeth by name in the Globe. You have to call it “The Scottish Play.”

And fyi when they built this replica of the Globe they tried to build it just as it would have been built in Shakespeare's time. That means there are no nails in this theatre rather they used wooden "nails" I guess you would call them. And the walls in Shakespeare's time were made from plaster and cows hair. Apparently cows aren't as hairy these days so they ended up using cashmere in the walls of the Globe!

We took a day trip out to East London and Greenwich. East London is where they are building the stuff for the 2012 Olympics! Isn't it insane how early they have to start doing all of that?

They've got a lot of things up already. You can see Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village, the Aquatics Center as well as lot's of other things that are being developed with this project.

That's me doing my sport (swimming) in front of Olympic Stadium (which actually is not where the pool is located). Let's hope my technique in the water is better than out of it...

We then went out to Greenwich. This was a beautiful area of town but it is most famous for being one of the places that the prime meridian goes directly through. So I got to be in two places at once, hooray!

I went and saw the Lion King here. It was cool. They've incorporated a lot of African tribal elements into the show. There's more chants and African languages involved. The puppets they use are pretty innovative as well, although some of them were just weird.

My biggest complaint about The Lion King was that all the actors (except maybe Zazu) had phoned in their performance for the night. I know it's hard to do a show night after night, but come on you're getting paid to do this! It was a very half hearted effort.

Speaking of shows, I also went and saw Sister Act The Musical. I was skeptical but it was so good! It's just a feel good musical and it reminded me of Legally Blonde the Musical in a lot of ways. I laughed so hard through the whole thing. My only complaint about this show was that there were FOUR understudies on for principal characters. I know people get sick and stuff, but this was unacceptable. Whoopi Goldberg's character was understudied too. I wasn't happy but of course the understudies still were terrific.

My friend and future apartment-mate Meg came to visit! She was here for like 48 hours, but it was so fun to see her. We went to the Tower of London together. This is one of the few places I've been where the attraction was actually worth the admission fee.

First we took a beefeater tour. He was hilarious! They tell you the various histories and ghost stories related to the tower. You get to see where the scaffolding used to be where they beheaded all those people. Like Henry the VII's wives.

Also I visited Abbey Road and took pictures which was fun.

Tonight I'm going to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but that's probably the last big thing I'm doing here in London. It has Phylicia Rashad and James Earl Jones in it!

Well looks like this will probably be my last post from good ole London. I've had a blast here but I'm definitely ready to go home. Next I will be traveling through the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria for about 10 days and then I will be back home. I will try to post about those things if possible, but please be praying for safe and smooth travel. See you all soon!

YouTube Videos

I recorded the people who performed at the Regent Street thing. You can watch them here (if you want) or on my youtube channel, youtube.com/cloudy7589. You should at least watch the Colin Firth one because that's when he actually turns on the lights.

The Village People, Mr. Darcy and Harry Potter

As far as tourism goes, things have really slowed down for me here in London. We’re all tired of museums at this point and so we spend a lot of time just walking around in various parts of town. That’s really cool because every area of London is so different from the next. Last Monday I did go to the National Portrait Gallery and finish that out. There’s basically just a zillion pictures of royalty and other statesmen there. They wee doing a photograph exhibit on the 60s but I wasn’t going to pay to go in there. That afternoon I went to the Museum of London, which is actually pretty boring. They’re undergoing a major expansion so there wasn’t much to see. We had class 3 days this week and so that takes up a huge chunk of my day.We dressed up and went out on Halloween!

Actually people don’t celebrate Halloween as much here. They are more into the scary aspects of Halloween than trick or treating—most people were dressed up as like zombies with blood on their face and nasty things like that. I was member of the Village People.

It was a fun night, but I missed not having like buckets of candy to eat :) and they actually don’t even have candy corn! Is this a civilized place?! Someone save me a bag…

Yesterday was my ultimate tourist day. I first went to the Natural History Museum. It was pretty cool.

Then I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. It’s a decorative arts museum. A lot of it was boring just because there was so much stuff in there. They had a selection of Raphael cartoons, and some other famous things. They also had a theatre museum that I really enjoyed with costumes worn by the likes of Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

That night I went to the celebration at Regent Street to turn on the Christmas lights around London. The picture above shows just how many people were there. There were 3 locations around London and they were all going to be turned on at the same time. It was also a celebration of the new movie “A Christmas Carol”! So I decided to go to the celebration where Colin Firth was turning on the lights (Jim Carrey and Bob Hoskings (?) were a the other two). I got there early and was in the front. Daniel Merriweather, the London Community Gospel Choir and The Noisettes all perfomed as well as Jodie Pringer who's playing Nancy in Oliver! on West End.

Then the man of the hour Colin Firth came on! That guy is almost 50 years old and he is still just really ridiculously good-looking. Everyone was freaking out about him. Grown women were screaming!

It was really cool and so crowded and it got me all pumped up about Christmas!

That night we went to see a play called “Our Class”. It traces a class of students in Poland as the Soviets and then the Nazis invade and occupy Poland. It was really sad and really graphic. It showed how neighbors can turn against one another and what humans can do to each other. The play was in a very small theatre and performed in the round. That made the action so much more intense as you feel like you are really intruding on the action and the history of these people.

One thing about this play was that there was no weak link among the actors. The play only had 10 characters and there was no real main character and each performer was fantastic. Actually Stan Shunpike, driver of the Knight Bus from Prisoner of Azkaban was in it! That was cool to see him. These plays have been filled with Harry Potter actors! Love it!

From the Barricade to the Opera

Well my theatrical adventures continue as I went to see Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. Les Miserables was so amazing! I’ve seen it before so I wasn’t that excited or anything about it, but it was great. Jean Valjean, played by Simon Bowman was not the greatest though. He couldn’t hit the high notes very strongly. Also he was backtracking so badly in the songs. I forgot what the term is but he was always behind the music and would slow down and then speed up singing to catch back up with the music. It was distracting. But he was a good actor. Although I saw a much much better Valjean in the US tour. My FAVORITE character is Javert. Poor guy. But in my opinion he gets the best song and he has to have the best voice in the show. Hans-Peter Janssens had a tremendous voice! I love it. He was a very stiff Javert so he needed to loosen up a bit, but other than that I really liked him.

Eponine was played by Nancy Sullivan. So good. Eponine drives the show in my opinion. Although she’s really not onstage for the majority of the play, that character really impacts me every time. And the reaction form the audience for her was awesome.

One thing I was really impressed with was the ensemble. It was stellar! They were spot on in every scene. Then ensemble usually only sticks out to me if they were bad, but these guys were great. Every person who opened their mouths could sing so well. I really don’t know how to describe them.

Last people I was impressed with were the students. There was an understudy for Enjolras and other than fumbling some words (I think, maybe I just couldn’t understand him), he was fantastic. I usually get annoyed by that story line because I never feel any sympathy for their cause, and I think they are just dumb. The passion these actors showed for their cause in this production really fired me up and made their downfall impact me much more. “Red and Black” gave me goosebumps. The Thenardiers were hilllaaaaaarious too!

Final anecdote on Les Miz. First of all, I never cry. Second of all, I never cry in musicals. So when Valjean sings “Bring Him Home” to Marius before the battle I wasn’t really expecting to be impacted. This Valjean’s upper register was weak and I don’t like Marius because he’s a player. The song goes “God on high hear my prayer…Bring him peace bring him joy, he is young, he is only a boy”. I was kinda tuned out until I saw the man in front of me reach out and hold his 8-9 year old son’s hand during the middle of the song. Aaaaaahhhhhh I started to tear up. It was so sweet!

Then I saw Phantom of the Opera. I did not really love this play to begin with but I was open to having my opinions changed. I had only seen the movie so I was hoping that seeing it live would get me really into the show. Erm, hardly. I know lots of people really love this musical, but this production was a mess.

I did wholeheartedly love all the character actors in the play. Monsiuer Andre, Monsiuer Firmen, Carlotta and the male opera singer were all fantastic and hilarious!

The thing that really made me not like it was the Phantom. We had an understudy for the Phantom and Christine. Usually understudies are just as good or better even than the regular actor. They didn’t even announce or put a piece of paper in the programs saying who was on that night.

Phantom was not very good in my opinion. I really want the Phantom to make me feel sorry for him and side with him throughout the play and hope that somehow Christine falls in love with him. Well this time I was pulling for Raoul. Nigel Richards just didn’t have a powerful voice like I expect the Phantom too. Not even like a great singing voice, just a commanding character. One really weird scene, which isn’t the actors fault, was during the masquerade scene where the Phantom busts in on the party. He comes down dressed as a skeleton. Supposed to be scary, but I was laughing because the skull mask he was wearing was an animatronic mask so that his mouth would move! It took everything in me not to laugh! And I guess that's how they must do that part in every production of Phantom. On the plus side I did figure out how the Phantom disappears into his chair at the end of the show.

Christine was also the understudy or standby, I don’t know which. She had a good voice, it was just kind of abrasive. I don’t really like that high kinda true soprano opera voices, but it is a story about an opera sooooo. She was just all over the place as far as acting goes. Really jerky and ran around the stage anxiously all the time.

Finally, I saw the show with a friend on the trip who was a former ballerina. A large part of the opera scenes are a chorus of ballet dancers. She said the ballet was just horrible. We’re not sure if it was supposed to be that way or not, but for a professional level show, it should be better.

All that to say, some people may LOVE this show. And if I had seen a different production I might have liked it too. Just definitely not my favorite by a long shot.

Read until the end of the post, you won't regret it!

Alright now we all know I love theatre so let me catch you up on two of the past productions that I have seen.

First I saw Wicked. We got students tickets two hours before the show and were on about the 6^th row right in the center. Weirdest thing—they had English accents! That totally through me off for the first few minutes. I guess there’s no reason why they should have American accents, I was just thrown off by the fact that they didn’t have them!

Our Elphaba was Ashleigh Gray. She is the stand-by for Elphaba. I think everyone gets a little nervous when they see an understudy is on, but I don’t know why! She was fantastic! If I hadn’t seen the board before I walked in the theatre I would never have picked up on the fact that she was the understudy. She had a great voice (only not low enough to hit that last not in “I’m not that Girl”).

Glinda, played by Dianne Pilkington, was the one that I did not really like. Her voice was great I had no problem there. She just seemed a bit bored up on the stage. She rushed through all her lines and thereby missed a lot of the punchlines of jokes. I just wanted to scream “SLOW DOWN!” so that people could actually hear the funny parts. The Glinda I saw in Memphis (Helene York) was hilarious.

Everyone else in the production was good. No stand-outs or anything. Except that I did like this ensemble better than the one on tour. Maybe they are more comfortable in their roles here; they just didn’t seem to try too hard.

Another neat thing about seeing it in a permanent theatre rather than on tour is the differences in set. Surprisingly they had the giant dragon on tour (whose function in the play I really don’t understand), but in this theatre there were platforms and woodwork creeping off of the stage and onto the walls.

Sorry I look like a homeless person in that picture. That's Kelsey on the left and Jen on the right. One thing I really picked up on after 3 productions was the strong political undertones in Wicked. It’s really a testament against the government. There’s a ton of corruption going on where the Wizard and Madame Morrible do anything to try to gain power over the land, even if it means suppressing some voices. Actually during class the other day one of my professors said the L. Frank Baum wrote the Wizard of Oz with the Wizard as a representation of Williams Jennings Bryan, fictionalized in the 1950s play “Inherit the Wind”…which brings me to my next play.

As a class we went and saw “Inherit the Wind”. You’ve probably heard of this one before—it’s a fictionalized account of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial where a teacher was prosecuted for breaking the law saying no one could teach evolution in schools. The play basically supports the side of evolution, but if that’s all one takes from the play then you have missed the major point. The play advocates freedom of thought, that everyone should be allowed to express their own opinions. I like to think of it in opposite terms of the play. If the people in power were advocating evolution and suppressing the idea of intelligent design (as things seems to be heading) I would want to be able to have the freedom to talk about my beliefs.

The character of Matthew Harrison Brady, supporter of Intelligent Design, was played by David Troughton. Oddly enough his son was in the ensemble at the Royal Shakespeare Company so we got to see him in about 3 plays! But David Troughton was a fantastically bigoted Brady. His accent was (surprisingly) spot on. The play takes place in a small town in Tennessee, so I feel qualified to judge accents! Some of the characters though did not even try to put on an accent. Apparently Troughton played Dr. Who at some point (maybe he was the original one?). I've never heard of the tv show Dr. Who but it's apparently big over here.

The opposing character Henry Drummond, defender of evolution, was played by…drumroll….KEVIN SPACEY! Agh so cool! I think seeing him in person really convinced me as to how great of an actor he really is. His portrayal of Drumond was terrifying at some points, cheeky at others, but Spacey really drives the show.

I love the picture above. The programs had one man's face on the front and one on the back. Watching David Troughton and Kevin Spacey act up there together was amazing. They are both fantastic actors playing commanding and dominant characters. The results of those confrontations made sparks. That's a lame description, but I have no other words for it.

Best part--all week I had been gathering up a group to hit the stage door after the show, and we met Kevin Spacey! I got him to sign my program and then we took a group picture with him.

He's a really quiet guy. He didn't ask what our names were or even say hello although there was only about 10 people waiting at the stage door. Not that I expect any actor to do that. I'm grateful that he was willing to sign at all! He had a window installed in the door that he can open to sign autographs so he doesn't actually have to come outside. Ha! I guess we're a dangerous group. I did feel a bit like I was ordering a hamburger at the drive thru...