The Drunks

On our last night we saw a new Russian play called “The Drunks”. It was another play that was a part of the Revolutions series at the RSC where they commission new playwrights to write these plays to be put on at the RSC. I’m still digesting what exactly the play meant and what I thought of it. It seems like one of those plays where while I’m watching it I have no idea what’s going on but there’s some deeper meaning going on.

The basic premise was that a shell-shocked soldier comes to his home in Russia from some war to find that things are very different. Then three different people start to compete for his loyalty to boost their campaigns for mayor of the city. There was Boris Ivanovich played by the same guy who played Antigonus in "The Winter's Tale", Victor Victorovich played by my favorite Darrell D’Silva, and Sergey played by the fantastic Richard Katz. All three were fantastic. Boris Ivanovich was a power hungry leader with a 7% approval rating who was not very concerned with how his government was run. Victor Victorovich was a cop who was trying to return the city to old roots. And not in a good way. He was more concerned about acquiring old weapons like his sword Delilah or an old set of daggers and renaming the local paper to The Sword and Panther than running a city. Then Sergey was an old friend of Ilya’s now editing a newspaper who wanted to return the city to the people. There were some very disturbing scenes but some very funny ones as well.

I really didn’t understand what the main point of this play was. Ilya was shown on all the posters so I thought he would be the main character, but he hardly ever spoke. Ilya was the shell-shocked soldier and he was really cute. He didn’t have a lot of lines and his action mostly consisted of walking dazed around the stage. The plot lines were unclear. Obviously there is some important reason the playwright wrote the play, but it just wasn’t clearly conveyed to the audience.

Although the play itself was strange, the actors were fantastic at playing these odd characters. I really like the character of Victor Victorovich played by Darrell D’Silva. That man was absolutely brilliant in everything he was in and he played very different characters in each one. Also Richard Katz as the journalist was awesome.

As I’ve tried to digest this play I have only come up with a few possibilities as to what it is trying to convey to the audience. One of my classmates offered that all she gathered was that we should be nice to our war veterans. Perhaps the play was a critique on the government of Russia as there were three different parties vying for Ilya’s endorsement for the next election. I am not sure why the play was title “The Drunks”. Sure people drank a lot throughout, but I can’t connect the title to a main idea, except that alcohol caused Ilya’s hallucinations. Perhaps the play showed how much a town can be changed and effected by war. Ilya’s home town is drastically different when he returns to it exemplified by the fact that Communist Street had changed names to Democracy Street. I thought that was so ironic as the people in power were basically controlling tyrants still just under a different label. It may have been a critique on what a hero is. Ilya was praised as a hero because it was beneficial to the powers that be. My most general idea is that it was a critique of modern Russia and its brokenness and bleakness. The final scene gave me the idea that maybe the playwright is putting hope in the future generation. Ilya and Natasha leave a son who in the play was only shown as a beam of light. Russia is now in the hands of the next generation and it relies on them to try to heal the country. All in all, kind of a bleak play to end on! But I was glad this was the last play because if it had been one of the others I really would have been reluctant to leave Stratford!

"Are you dead from the neck up?"

Alright, besides plays, we did do a lot of stuff around town as well. But the plays were the best part. On Monday we visited Hall’s Croft and Nash’s house. Hall’s Croft is where Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna lived with her husband Dr. John Hall. They were really rich. It was kind of boring because we’ve seen like a thousand homes that were somehow associated with Shakespeare. He never lived at this one or anything so it was just like Stratford was just trying to turn everything into a museum so they can make as much money as possible. The tour guide in Hall’s Croft was really mean. He said, “Are you guys dead from the neck up?” No, your house is just boring. This was the most exciting thing.

The gardens were pretty too.

Then we went to Nash’s house and New Place. Nash’s house is where Shakespeare’s granddaughter lived. That is a stretch. Next door was New Place where Shakespeare’s house used to be. He bought it after he was super rich so apparently it was really nice. It is now just a garden.

But we really just enjoyed coloring our own knot gardens.

That night we went to Julius Caesar, which I already wrote a blog post about so just read my last post if you want to know more about it. On Tuesday we had class in the morning. We had a Q&A with the Company Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Dembowicz. We were hoping to get an actor, but he gave us interesting insight into the life of people in the RSC. Um, let’s just say it’s ridiculous. There’s a company of 45 actors who between them did 6 plays this season. The actors are in 3 plays each with different directors. Then in two weeks rehearsals start for another 4 plays with the same group of actors. So he has to juggle rehearsal times for all of these with the rehearsals for the current productions and the actual performances and at the same time be working with the other departments like marketing or the board to make sure everything is going smoothly. He told us he has one day next year where nothing is scheduled. Crazy. Just as a visual, this is the theatre we saw everything in, The Courtyard. It’s actually a temporary theatre but it’s what the new theatre will look like but on a smaller scale. This seated 1,000 people and was very nice for a temporary theatre.

Tuesday afternoon we went to Trinity Church. I went there the other day for church and it was cool. They’re doing construction right now so we couldn’t actually see Shakespeare’s grave very well because they wouldn’t let us through with all the scaffolding…

The Church is very beautiful though.

On Wednesday, we had a lecture about a portrait of Shakespeare that they think they have found. It was given by Sir Stanley Wells who actually found the portrait and have conducted all the research on it. They still don’t know for sure that it was him. The thing is there is no definitive portrait that we have that we know was painted of Shakespeare during his lifetime. They have dated this one and it would have been painted while he was still alive. It was found in the former home of his patron and one of the very few who Shakespeare ever actually dedicated a work to. So they think it’s him, but they aren’t sure.

In the afternoon we had a drama workshop! I had fun, although I think some people in our group did not. I got singled out to read Juliet’s entire monologue right before her suicide! I answered a question and then she was like ok now get up and do the whole thing. It was cool to see the process that these actors go through when preparing for these roles. We had to go through the lines and translate them into modern English so that we would know their meanings. Then we had to figure out who each line was directed to, even in the soliloquies! Then we got to do some scenes from “The Winter’s Tale” which we were seeing that night. All the groups had the same scene but we had to each play them differently. My group played the scene like it was a family court, but other groups had to pretend that it was an Oprah show, a dinner party gone wrong and someone’s deathbed. It was then cool to see how the scene was actually played out in the show that night. I really have fun doing things like that. And I got to play King Leontes who had killed his wife so extra fun! I’m writing a separate post on the actual production of the play we saw that night.

That night we went to a pub/bar called the Dirty Duck. The real name is the Black Swan but it developed that nickname over the years. It was a really cool place because it’s traditionally where the actors hang out after the performance.

I thought that we might see only one or two, but as soon as we got there practically the entire company was coming in behind us. So we were just creepers for a little while and just watched some of them. They actually have a separate room and bar just for them, which is neat. At the end of the night one of the actors pulled over his chair and talked to us. He was only a year or two older than us we think. It’s just crazy that someone about my age already has a job with the most prestigious acting company maybe in the whole world.

On Thursday we had our last Q&A with Kelly Hunter who played Hermione in “The Winter’s Tale”. This was the best Q&A yet.

She gave us insight into how she prepares for her roles. She always learns her lines before rehearsals and when she learns a speech she pays particular attention to the last word of every line. She can go through each one of her speeches and recite only the last word of each line. Also, Hermione has a scene where she has to pretend to be a statue on stage for about seven and a half minutes and then come to life. From the moment she leaves stage in the first half she starts doing meditation exercises to slow her heartbeat down. She doesn’t eat or drink anything so that her body stops those functions. Then she wraps herself up in a fire blanket and basically goes to sleep until it’s time to go on as the statue. And she does not move! It was fantastic.

That afternoon we had a wig and makeup demonstration! That was really neat too. She put some fake wounds and costumes on people. AnnGarner got a lovely head wound...

And Andrew got to wear some women's clothing...

And then…I got my throat slit! It was awesome! Except that she neglected to take into account that I was wearing a white shirt. I was finding blood in all kinds of places that night…Anyways, we got to see the different ways they got blood on people in Julius Caesar. Caesar actually wore a harness with a bag of blood in it that the actors would break open at the right moment.

That night we saw “The Drunks” which is a new Russian play. I may just write a separate post about that because this is getting too long. So this morning we left our lovely guest house, Forget-Me-Not, and the lovely lady, Kate, who took care of us for almost 2 weeks.

We were all very, very sad to leave. And now I sit in Carlisle, England. We saw Coventry Cathedral today which was bombed by the Germans in World War 2.

Sorry to throw all of this out in one post, but I had gotten behind! I miss you all!

Julius Caesar is fierce

Monday (I think) we went to see Julius Caesar at the RSC. A lot of the people in my group really did not like this play. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it.

The show began with a fight between the half human/half animal forms of Romulus and Remus. This scene was both interesting and effective to me. Interesting in the fact that it was something I would never have thought to portray on stage in this play and effective in the fact that it really sets the tone for the rest of the evening, bloody.

I liked the actor who played Brutus, Sam Troughton. He was a younger guy, which some found ineffective, but I didn't even notice it. One image in particular that I remember was the scene when Cassius and the conspirators come to Brutus’ home to try to recruit him to their cause. They all came in cloaked and wearing black like Death Eaters, while Brutus wore white for most of the play. That costuming choice showed his “purity” of motives and also provided a stark contrast to the perhaps selfish motives of the others.

One thing I found interesting was that these black figures never enveloped Brutus. He was never surround and forced or bullied to make his decision. He willingly stepped into the circle of trust among these dark men (literally and figuratively). I never felt sorry for Brutus except in the fact that I knew his end. I thought the actor showed how Brutus made his own decision to become a murderer out of what he though were pure intentions, to save the republic from a tyrant.

Julius Caesar was played effectively by the amazing actor Greg Hicks except for the fact that his voice was not as commanding as I had expected. That was a general problem in the play but I think it may have just been the acoustics of the set. Julius Caesar seemed egotistical an authoritative but not in a way that was an immediate threat to the republic of Rome.

So there seemed to be an equal balance between the possibility of Julius Caesar reaching the point where he was a power hungry dictator and the uncalculated brash actions of the conspirators. The death scene was really good! Instead of just dying instantly when stabbed, he first put up a pretty good fight and then staggered down his "throne" and lingered there before poignantly delivering the famous line "Et tu, Brute?" Chills.

I also liked Cassius played by John Mackay. I like it when the bad guys are likeable! You become wrapped into their thoughts and their motives because they don’t seem so bad but then you remember what they are actually capable of and you are scared of them again! I felt like that’s how Cassius was. He was manipulative enough to bring Brutus to their side, but yet you still feel sorry for him when he dies (at least I did). Although his Scottish accent that came out sometimes was really distracting. Either have the accent or don’t have the accent. In this picture he's on the right and Brutus is on the left.

Mark Antony was good as well. He is really a slippery character oscillating between supporting the murder of the tyrant Caesar, but then mourning the loss of his best friend Caesar. Darrell D'Silva has been absolutely fantastic in everything I've seen him in here.

The women in it were ok, but the moral of this story should just be to listen to women because they are a heck of a lot smarter than men are.

When Julius Caesar doesn't listen to his wife, he dies and Brutus won't share anything with his wife, she kills herself and then he dies.

The thing that was most detrimental to the production were these projection screens made of black cloth that were set along the back of the stage. They filmed the actors before hand and used their images in crowd scenes and battles. It was a little strange. The production was not enhanced by these projected images. Sound effects of grounds and battles are helpful for calculating the scale of an event, but a visual is not needed for everything. But perhaps there are members of an audience who needed that help. So although I would not have done this as a director as it added nothing to the play, I don’t have strong feelings against it.

Overall it was not my favorite production. There were better ways to have interpreted this play artistically and the director might have made better choices to tell the story more clearly. I still found plenty of things to take away from the play. The acting was absolutely splendid so it's really a shame when something out of the actor's control detracts from their play.

The Bardathon

Well I am now in the wonderful little town of Stratford-Upon-Avon! It's fairly small and just about everything here has to do with Shakespeare in some way or another (except the local H&M that I hit up this afternoon). So I guess I will start from the beginning of our exciting adventure here...

Sunday me and Kelsey went to Trinity Church. This is where Shakespeare is buried. I was really expecting the place to be practically empty as the old historic touristy trap churches were in Dublin. It was actually a hoppin place. There were families and young people and older people. But most of all the worship seemed genuine rather than just a worn out ritual like the other places. So I really enjoyed that. We're going to visit the church later as a tourist attraction so I'll talk about it more later.

Then me and Kelsey took a beautiful walk along the Avon River.

There was like a market going down and people picnicking everywhere. But best of all....there were puppies EVERYWHERE! I really liked this one because it reminded me of Tebow's favorite activity.

Then on Monday we began our classes at the wonderful Shakespeare Centre. It's adjacent to the Birthplace and basically we're like VIPS. On Monday we had a talk on Russian Theatre as we are seeing some Russian plays that had their international premiere here in Stratford only a few weeks ago.

After lunch we had a presentation of what is in the Library they have there. It's really fascinating actually. They have very old editions of Shakespeare's plays as well as things written by his contemporaries, but also they have extensive collections of various memorabilia from many of the productions of Shakespeare put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. They had pictures, videos, scripts and this ridiculous book (I forgot the term) that the director (or stage manager) makes all the notes in about blocking, props, lighting, etc.

Then we went to visit Shakespeare's birthplace. It was a neat little building.

Overall, I honestly wasn't too impressed with it. It began with this cheesy little intro that was weird. But really it's just that nothing in the house is authentic and looks very out of place in the house. None of the furniture or anything is original and they had very few artifacts from Shakespeare's actual life. This is understandable as he lived over 400 years ago. I guess it was just so built up in my head that it was kinda a let down. This is the room where they think he was actually born, if you can see this tiny picture.

Then Tuesday we had a day of lectures, I won't bore you with details but we basically talked about gender roles in his plays and the effect his hometown had on him and his works. After that we walked to Anne Hathaway's cottage which was Shakespeare's wife's childhood home.

The house itself was quaint and the inside was presented, in my opinion, much better than Shakespeare's birthplace. There were some pieces of furniture that were actually older than the 21st century. They also had beautiful gardens and grounds at the cottage.

Then last night we went to see a production of a play called "The Grain Store". This play was commissioned in a project called "Revolutions" done by the RSC. The gave commissions to several upcoming Russian playwrights to write plays for the RSC to perform while exploring what post-Soviet Union Russia is like.

So another cool thing was that when we got there they were filming for a TV special they're doing on the play (since this is its international premiere). I got really excited when I walked in and saw that notice and then while we were waiting the camera people kept coming up to me and asking me to hold my ticket a certain way and pretend like I was reading it to my friend, etc (movie star?). So I was like awesome, I might be on British TV! And then as we were walking into the theatre the camera appeared out of nowhere over my shoulder and I heard the producer person be like "We'll just follow her in". Yes!

It was a very very interesting play. It covered the history of the famine in Russia during the 1930s during which millions of people in the Soviet Union died of hunger. This was due mostly to the fact that the government was confiscating food form the people. Anyway this play follows the history of the playwright's grandmother (although I didn't know that as I was watching the play). Cool fact: the actress who played Mrs. Figg in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was in the play!

She was fantastic, as was the rest of the cast. I wish I had more space to talk further about the play, but this post is already too long!

So I was leaving the theatre and, guess what?! The camera people came up and asked "Can we interview you really quickly?" I was like "I thought you'd never ask." (I didn't actually say that fyi). So I'm basically famous now. And the TV show airs after I leave here so I'll never see it anyway.

Today we had more classes with a lecture to talk about the play we saw, which was very helpful in understanding everything. But the coolest thing was that we got to have a Q&A session with the main actress in the play (Samantha Young)! She was really nice and Scottish too. Apparently we get to have these conversations with someone from every play we are seeing here!

Then this afternoon we got to take a voice class which was so much fun! It wasn't like singing, but looking at a monologue and dissecting the sounds and structure of it. We never had to talk out loud by ourselves but we did a lot of cool exercises to get in touch with the rhythm of the words. We did a lot of walking around and reading at the same time, which is actually harder than it sounds...