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...

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!

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.