Waterstone and Conversation

Today, before class, Jared and I went to the largest bookstore in Europe- Waterstone. It was awesome. There were five floors, and each floor was about half the size of a typical city Borders. We lost our selves for two hours. I was kinda mad, though, because they didn't have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. They had all the rest of the books.

After class (really boring, of course) we all went to Conversation with Corin and Vanessa Redgrave. Basically it was an onstage interview of Corin and Vanessa for about half an hour, then about twenty minutes of audience questions. I can see how it could've been interesting. The problem was I've never seen them before and I don't know who they are. The other problem is that they didn't talk about acting or what they did, but they talked about how their whole family is into acting, and what it was like growing up in a theatre household. It was boring. And the audience questions were dumb too- Can you reflect on so-and-so? How do you feel about your humanitarian views? I mean come on. How about a fun question like, What was your most embarassing moment onstage? Anyway, it was quite boring. Like I said, it was probably because I didn't know who they were.

Back in the UK

I'm back from Paris. It was amazing. I'm utterly exhausted and won't have any posts up until tomorrow at the earliest. I have a ton of pictures, though. It was an awesome weekend.

Just a random thought- this is pretty much my last week in London. This weekend I go to Rome and next week we're going to Cornwall. I have 6 days left in London. Wow...

The Weekend

So after a few boring days of class (and a little bit of theatre) I'm taking the night easy. We leave for Paris early (5) tomorrow morning. This means that I will not be updating for a few days. Other than that there's not much going on (but at the same time a whole lot). It's hard to believe that there is little more than two weeks left in this country. Then to Romania.
Anyway, keep sending love, as it is always welcome!

Twelfth Night

So, Paris better be awesome, because this was the second bad theater exerience in 24 hours. The problem with this show was that the actors spent so much time trying to make the meaning of the text clear with blocking and gestures that the words were completely lost. The poetry made no sense, and I could barely understand anyone. This was partly because we were outside, but there was a sound system, so this should not have been a problem. The fool (clown character) was completely incomprehensible. I did not understand a single word he said the entire show. His actions were funny, and I probably would have laughed if any of it had made sense. He was an excellent singer, though (regardless of the fact there were no consonants in his singing).
Overall I was unimpressed. This show can be better done.

The Happening

This movie fell short. Very short. The movie started too late in the plot. The previews sell it to you on, "What is the Happening? What's wrong with these people? What are they running from?" All of these questions are answered within the first 5 minutes of the movie. And there is no build-up to the problem. In fact, the build-up happens after the problem starts. There is a story of a "rough" marriage that is highlighted, but the stakes aren't very high. The wife had dessert with another guy. There is no exposition and no resolution. And the idea, though I think a decent one and almost original enough, ends up just being the same as every other horror movie. The problem is that it's not a horror movie- there's very little horrific about it.
The lines are iffy and the delivery of them is even worse. It seems as though M Night Shyamalan isn't capable of even inventing a real marital problem and dialogue to go with it, let alone ever having experienced it. With a marital problem that seems too insignificant to need a giant catastrophe to fix, and a natural disaster that is poorly executed and resolved there is little substance to believe in this movie. The entire northeast population dies, and three months later schools reopen. WHAT?!
I though that Armand Schultz had the best performance in the whole movie. (Army is an NU graduate. I've unfortunately never had the chance to speak to him, as he tends to visit when I have other things to attend to.) This is kinda sad, as he is a news reporter with a small amount of dialogue at the end of the movie. But I think he was the only believable character in the whole movie...

Layout

It may come as a shock to some of you, but this is my first blog. This means that I am constantly learning, and therefore constantly shifting and improving the layout to my blog. I just recently learned how to add label links to the sidebar, so that you don't have to search for a post with the same label. Here's how it works:
Let's say you want to see all of my posts on theatre. Instead of finding them all in the archives, you can now just click the theatre link on the sidebar, and it will filter the posts to show all the theatre posts. Pretty cool, huh? It also tells you how many posts have that label.
I also added dad's blog to the blog roll.

Hopefully this is as much of a learning experience for all of you as it is for me! Remember, comments can be made by clicking on the 0 comments located under each post, you can email the post to your friends by clicking the little symbol of a letter (also under each post), or you can subscribe to get an email every time I update by clicking the link next to subscribe at the very bottom of the page!

Billy Elliot

Number 1. Hands down. It was an awesome musical. The story is inspiring and enveloping. The music is beautiful (Elton John). The dancing was beyond words. And to top it all off it was Fox Jackson-Keen's (Billy Elliot) first night. It was so cool to be a part of his first time onstage performing as Billy. I was so blown away by the performance that I forgot to take a picture of the theatre on my way out. To see a thirteen-year-old boy dancing in ways that I've never seen anyone dance was amazing. He was also a gymnast, so he could not only do turns but also hand-springs, front flips, aerials, and wall backflips (the coolest one). He could do ballet, tap, and modern, all of which were showcased in the show. He played the part wonderfully and the audience was very excited to see him for the first time.

The rest of the show was also cool. Like I said before, the music was phenominal, having a wide range of styles but still having the Elton John feel to them. There was everything from string ballads to electric guitar rock. The lyrics were absolutely beautiful, and the music and lyrics flowed into one.

The choreography was unbelievable. The ability of Peter Darling to place each and every person as an individual on the stage but still have them create a unified picture was magnificent. Truly remarkable. People could all be doing a different piece of choreography but the same dance. And the combination of different styles and techniques was a visual work of art that was almost necessary in order for the show (and of course, Fox) to shine.

Everyone on the team worked really hard to put together this show, and it is very clear. It is a wonderful show, top to bottom, with the only problem being that the Underground goes underneath the theatre so that some of the quieter scenes were underlaid with the rumbling of trains passing underneath (and indeed sometimes shaking the seats). The production team is the same team that created the film plus Elton John for the music. It was in this way that they could effectively tell the story. It was the same but at the same time completely different, lending itself more to the stage.

Truly remarkable.

Westminster Abby

Jared and I got up early this morning to get tickets for Billy Elliot tonight (which we got awesome seats.) On the way back we decided to stop by the Westminster Abby and do the tour. We have to do it for our paper, so we figured we'd get it out of the way. It wasn't very exciting-just a bunch of tombs, altars, shrines, and cloisters. It was huge, and Poet's corner was pretty cool. Edward Bulwer-Lytton once said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." All you have to do is walk through Westminster Abby to see that it's true. If you were to look at the names that you recognize from the lines of Kings and Queens and then look at the names you recognize from poet's corner, there are significantly more in poet's corner.
I don't really get too excited over churches. Yeah they're cool, but I don't really think it was worth the 9 pounds I paid to get in.

The Incredible Hulk

Jared, Dan and I went to The Incredible Hulk tonight at the IMAX theatre right next to school. It was actually pretty good. I was not really expecting anything much, but I enjoyed it. The actor who played the general was flat and I didn't like him. At all. And Liv Tyler (aka Arwen) played Betty Ross, Bruce Banner's girlfriend. She did very well, though there was one point where she was on the verge of tears, looking straight into the camera, and said, "Bruce?" and I laughed out loud. Now there was nothing funny about the moment, except it was pretty much exactly the same shot as the Fellowship when Frodo's dying with the blade in his chest- "Frodo!"

Anyway, I never saw the Hulk so I can't compare, but I do know it's a completely different crew, top to bottom, and they kinda gloss over the initial story of how he became the Hulk and pick up where the last movie left off. Not a sequel, but it's still a continuation of the story.

Was it worth the 9 pounds? I dunno. Maybe.

Windsor and Hampton Court Palace

Today a couple of us went on a day tour to Windsor (Castle) and Hampton Court Palace. It was pretty fun. We started out at Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is where the Queen currently lives.

The architecture is obviously pretty sweet, but as it's a modern castle, the interior isn't too exciting. I'm more of a medieval castle kinda guy, so walking on red carpets looking at walls of portraits, tapestries, and unused weaponry set up in a decorative fashion doesn't really float my boat. There was a cool hall though dedicated to the Order set up by Edward III and the Black Prince. It had all of the coats of arms of the members of the order from its founding through to present day.

After exploring the castle, Jared and I went to a chocolate shop (I don't remember the name off hand). It basically makes its own chocolate, but it imports some. I tried a sample and it was delicious. They've won awards for their chocolate. So naturally, I bought some. We'll see how long it lasts. I haven't opened it- I want to be able to enjoy it, so I'm saving it for when I want chocolate, but not every piece of chocolate in sight.

After Windsor, we headed to Hampton Court Palace. This was even less cool that Windsor Castle because it had all the boring interior with no cool exterior. We walked through the entire thing as quickly as possible, Jared and I talking about various fantasy novels and video games, barely paying attention to what we were doing.

Once we got through the insides, we checked out the gardens. Those were pretty cool.

Jared and I did sit down to an afternoon tea that was quite delicious. We did the classic tea cake and scone (tea with milk and brown sugar, scone with cream and jam). It was delicious.After the Palace we came back to the university and chilled.

Just a quick note, I did upload some of my pictures onto facebook, and I added the Dublin album link to the links section on the right of this page. Check it out!

The Countryside

We went on a bus tour of the countryside on our second day in Dublin. It was fun. We got to see a little more of Ireland than Dublin, but we didn't have to spend all day out and about. We had an AWESOME tour guide/bus driver who talked to us and told us stories the whole bus ride. He even sang us some awesome Irish folk songs. There was one point where he was in the middle of a story and stopped to comment about a woman walking down the street with a look of determination. I'm sure she was just "power walking" but he's like, "I wouldn't want to be the fella she's comin' home to!" It was fun.
Our first stop was Monaghan Castle. It was pretty cool, though it has been lived in up until thirty years ago. It is more along the lines of a house than a fortress, so it wasn't as cool as Warwick. But it was still cool.
This is a view of the grounds from out of one of the windows.
On our way back we stopped at a beach. You can see the peninsula behind Emily and me.

After we got back, we ate and then I went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. On the way I ran into Jared, so he came with me. It was pretty sweet. It's an old version of the gospels, copied by four monks in latin and decorated with gothic drawings and colors*. Then we went upstairs and looked at the Long Room, which is a giant old library. I mean giant, like the size of the one in Beauty and the Beast. It was awesome. Also housed in the library was the oldest harp in Ireland.
Jared and I took a quick walk over to Oscar Wilde's memorial before going back to the hostel and catching dinner (Oscar Wilde is a famous poet- one of the ones we're studying in class).

That night we went pub hopping again. This time it was on our own and to real pubs (not the touristy ones). Trevor was told where to find them, so we wandered down the street. The first pub we went to was fun, but we didn't talk to many people. Trevor and Greta talked to some old Irish men, but that was it. Then we went to an American 50's style diner and got deserts. We all wanted desert. After a quick desert (I got ice cream. I'd been dying for ice cream. The two things I'm eating first when I get home are Taco Bell and Cookies and Cream ice cream.) we went to another pub. There we met some guys more our age (late twenties) and hung out with them. Just as we started to chat, the pub was closing, so we went to another one. It was kinda loud, but one of the guys bought us a round of beer. We decided the noise didn't lend much to conversation, so we went to another pub (there are certainly enough to take your pick, without much of a walk in between). There was music, but we went outside in the back so it wasn't too loud. Our new Irish friends could smoke back there, so that was another plus (for them at least). They bought us another round and we stayed there til 1:30. They continued on to yet another pub, but we decided to go to bed on account of exhaustion.

The next morning we got breakfast/lunch (yes, at a pub. Again, where else is there to eat? I'm not even joking....it's either McDonalds or a pub) and then headed back to London. It was an excellent weekend.



*again with the British spellings, I wanted to spell "colours"

Guinness

We actually started out our first day in Dublin by visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral. I didn't go in, but it was pretty sweet. We just kinda chilled in the front lawn and relaxed. Strangely enough, there was actually a Tim Horton's across the street. Weird, huh?After the Cathedral we went to the Guinness factory. It was awesome. There were seven different levels, and it took you through the process of how they make Guinness. It was cool being able to go through and learn a little bit. The center of the building was designed to look like a giant pint, so the entire time you're climbing through a pint of guinness. There were various floors that had various information- how to make it, how to store it, how to transport it, how the building was founded (original lease of 9000 years. wow) and finally, on the top floor, there was a bar that served each person who went through the tour one glass of guinness (or other drink). The bar, being on the top floor, had walls of glass, giving you a view of the entire city of Dublin (not that there's much to look at).
This is the view from the seventh floor bar.

After the guinness factory, we got some dinner (at a pub of course. Where else is there to eat in Dublin?) and then went on a pub crawl. They took us around and showed us different pubs to go to. I went to three out of four of them, but after having three hours of sleep and then a twenty hour day, I could barely stand on my feet, so I went back to the hostel to go to sleep.

Wicked

Finally, after three years of anticipation, I finally get to see it. I've known the songs by heart and used to listen to them all the time. And now my imaginings of the stage come to life. The holes in the story are filled in. And it was phenominal. Alexia Khadime, the woman who played Elphaba (the Wicked Witch), was amazing. Truly. She had an amazing voice and more than once I had chills because of the way she used it. Remarkable.

The whole production was amazing from the music (Stephen Schwartz is one of my favorite* composers) to the spectacle. One thing that struck me as odd was that there was captioning. As in, English words to the left and right of the stage that wrote what was being said. I see why someone would go if they couldn't hear, but I think that giant glowing red letters are necessary. In fact, it was distracting from the performance. I constantly found my eyes wandering to the side of the stage to read the words.

Overall excellent performance. I would definately see it again (though a different cast would be fun).

*I thought I should note that I read a lot of British books, as the fantasy genre seems to be dominated by British authors, and I almost spelled "favorite" as "favourite".

West End Live

Today we went to West End Live. It's basically a bunch of performances from Musicals to Music groups to performing arts schools for free all jambed in Leicester square. It was fun. Totally packed, though. Jared and I caught the tail end of "Close Every Door" from Joseph. We then watched the Mamma Mia, Avenue Q, and High School Musical performances. There were a couple others in there as well. It was fun, and as it doesn't happen very often, it was good to be a part of.

Unfortunately Jared and I couldn't get tickets to see Billy Elliot tonight as it's crazy, but I got a ticket for Wicked (though I probably paid more than I should've because I forgot to mention I'm a student. Oh well.) So that'll be fun.

Oh, and I promise I'll get my Ireland posts up as soon as possible. It's still crazy and is going to continue to get even crazier.

Canterbury

Today Jared and I went to Canterbury. It was not an arranged trip. A couple days ago Jared and I bought bus tickets and we just went. When we got there, we got a map, and charted our course. It was quite fun. We did three things. The first, was visit the Canterbury Cathedral. Second, we went through the Canterbury Tales tour. Third, we visited the Canterbury Castle.

So on the way to the cathedral, we ran across this tower:

It is apparently what remains of the church where Christopher Marlowe was baptised. For those that don't know, Christopher Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare- aka he wrote plays around the same time period. Actually, he died about 6 weeks before Shakespeare's first play. Some people think that Marlowe actually published under Shakespeare's name and that Shakespeare didn't actually write any plays. But that's a different story altogether.

Anyway, the Canterbury Cathedral is incredibly famous. There were two significant things about it that made Jared and I get on a bus for 2 hours. The first is that it is the Cathedral that Geoffrey Chaucer went on a pilgrimage to and in the process came up with the Canterbury Tales. The second is that it is the site of the tombstone of Prince Edward of Woodstock- the Black Prince.

This is the tomb of the Black Prince. It is a bronze figure, with his head resting on his helmet (and his feet on his dog). It was quite cool.
Me standing by the tomb. You can't really see it because of the guard cage, but you get the idea.
Around the outside of his tomb are his two arms. The first shield is the Shield of War. It is his coat of arms (and obviously that of his father, King Edward III). The second is the Shield of Peace. This has become the symbol for the Prince of Wales (I think Prince Edward was the first Prince of Wales).

After we finished at the Cathedral, we went to a place called The Canterbury Tales. Basically it was a cheesy audio and visual walkthrough of the Canterbury Tales. Super abridged- like, telling the story, but without any of Chaucer's words. It was cool in that it was a fun way to familiarize one's self with the Tales without reading them.

After the "tour" we went to the Canterbury Castle. It sounds a lot cooler than it was. It was basically a prison when it was still intact. And now it's just kind of a hollowed out keep. Even though it lacked the grandeur of the other castles we've been to, it was still fun to run around and take pictures.

We pretty much spent the rest of our time wandering around the shops and stuff. We stopped by the Marlowe Theatre and poked our heads in, but there's not much exciting in a theatre when there's not a show going on. Then we returned home. Unfortunately there were traffic problems, so after we were already 45 minutes late and showing no sign of being remotely close to the destination station, Jared and I just got off and walked the rest of the way back to school, as we had to get to the shows we were seeing before the curtain went up. And thus was Canterbury.

Les Miserables

This was the first Professional production of Les Miserables that I've seen. I was in it, I've seen two different high school versions (one with Trent, who absolutely rocked as Jean Valjean....but that may be biased) and the concert version on tape, but I haven't seen the full professional production. And it is different than the high school version- there's more. Not much more, and it didn't really add to the story. In fact, I think there was really only one or two things that the professional production had that wasn't in the high school version that I thought helped. Other than that, the high school version is more of a refined version than it is condensed.

Anyway, it was an excellent show. I thought everyone did extremely well, especially Jean Valjean. I've heard some crapy Valjeans (one of them being the Broadway recording) and this guy nailed it. Normally it's played by a different person, but the guy who played it tonight was fabulous. Each person in turn did their part very well (though Marius seemed to yell Empty Chairs at Empty Tables more than sing it, which bothered me a little). If I were to talk about each person and how well they did, you would all close your browser windows and go to bed because the blog would be too long. Just know that as a person who was in the show and has listened to several different people play each part, I though the show was excellent and each person did at least as good as I've heard it before, if not better. Some of them even did better than the international tenth anniversary concert edition. Now that's saying something.

A very powerful story, it is hard to not be moved by the show. It was excellently done and a wonderful night.

British Museum

Yesterday Jared and I went to the British Museum before class. It was pretty cool, though we barely scratched the surface as far as the exhibits there and how much you can see. It's free admission, but it would take several days at several hours a day in order to just look at everything, let alone learn about it. We ended up going to the Egyptian and then Greek parts of the museum, then went on a short tour about the Greek works that were there. It was fun watching how Greek art had developed over the years and in what ways they used the art.

Aphrodite (aka Venus via the Romans) covering herself because she was discovered in the woods.

Cool Greek artwork, toward its later development, on a pot used for wine.

Cool Greek statues (though originally Greek statues were painted).

The Rosetta Stone (part of the law written in three languages on one stone- very useful when trying to understand hyroglyphics)

And thus was our rather short visit to the museum. It was more because we had to visit it as part of a paper than because we actually wanted to go. But it was fun and worth it.

More Cool Pictures from Stratford-Upon-Avon

Just some more pictures from last week.

Major Barbara

It was another George Bernard Shaw play. Bleh. There were three acts. Act one was interesting. Act two was half interesting. Act three scene one was okay. Act three scene two was half interesting. Here is why. The interesting parts were when actual people were having real dialogue, genuine reactions, and there was movement onstage. The boring parts were when two people would stand onstage debating. The problem is that no one really knows what they were debating about. There was no clear-cut problem. On the contrary, it seemed to be four or five problems jumbled into one. And nothing was really answered at the end. Not that an answer was necessary- actually, it gives one the opportunity to think for one's self when a solution is not presented. It's just that sometimes when one is given a solution he can figure out what the problem was to begin with.

In any case, it was a highly political and moral play pushing Shaw's political and moral viewpoints- or at least the problems he had with the current society. These problems still exist today. Can the Salvation Army take "evil money"? Is there such a thing as "evil money" (money that is earned through a sinful process such as weapons or prostitution)? Is it wrong to be in the weapons-making business? What is morality? What is right/wrong? All of these very good questions, and a few viewpoints are argued in the show.

Before and after the show we had the opportunity to meet with Clare Higgins. She is truly a wonderful actress (in Major Barbara) and she approches acting in a practical, sensible, effective way. But what I liked most about her is that she loves it with all her heart. She can't help but laugh out loud during curtain call because of the joy it feeds into her soul. And she obviously gets something out of it- we had an hour-long discussion after the show about the questions it presents. She is truly a remarkable woman and I'm glad we had the chance to talk to her and learn something from her. The one thing she said to me that stood out above all the rest was this:
"If you walk on stage and you don't know where you are, they [the audience] doesn't know where you are. And they want to find out."

Pygmalion

So I was unsure at first how I would like this show. Mainly because it was written by George Bernard Shaw. Now don't get me wrong, he is an excellent writer, but he only seems to write on social injustice and equality. His moral is that "poverty is the route of all evil" so most of his shows involve someone working their way from lower class to middle or upper class and the evils that are forced upon the lower class by the upper class. We've read two of his plays in class, and one was good, the other very dry. We're going to see the dry one, Major Barbara, tomorrow, so we'll see if it's any better on its feet than in the reading.
Despite my unsurity, Pygmalion was actually quite enjoyable. It followed the typical format and was almost more of a statement for socialism than it was a play, but the characters had depth and something actually happened in the play. And it wasn't a happy ending. I guess that's what I like about Shaw- he doesn't leave you feeling depressed, but you certainly don't leave feeling elated on magical feelings. You leave thinking and processing what you just saw. I spent fifteen minutes after the show in quiet self-contemplation trying to digest not only what I saw but what I could do about it. It is quite depressing, and hard to come up with an answer. I don't like Shaw's answer, but I do like the fact that he seems to believe that anyone who works their butt off deserves to have a good life.
Anyway, it was a good show and though not at the top of my list, it was certainly worthwhile.

Merry Wives of Windsor

First show at the New Globe Theatre. For those that don't know, the New Globe is a fairly recent building that was built in (almost) exactly the same manner as the Old Globe (then known as the Globe Theatre). You may be asking, "What is the Globe Theatre?" Why it was non other than Shakespeare's theatre in London. It was cool. We had to stand as groundlings, which was fun. The standing sucked. But the stage had an aisle of sorts that extended out in a semi-circle from stage right to stage left with a small platform. This created a sort of bubble for the standing audience members and that is where we stood. It made it seem like we were onstage at certain points in the show.

The show itself was extremely well done. The characters all did a very good job, except one, who had really doofy expressions and made them in an effort to "react" to his fellow actors' lines. The problem is there were 3 expressions, and none of them were natural. Fortunately he was not a very important part. The play itself is brilliant (of course, as it's Shakespeare) and the traditional execution was magical. It was probably in the top three of shows I've seen here thus far (which is significant, as I've seen almost 20) even when compared to the musicals I've seen.

Anyway, it was one of those nights that I can't quite give justice to in words, so you must just take my word for it. It was truly magical.

Warwick Castle

First of all, it is pronounced "Warick." I don't understand why. It's the same reason that Leicester is "Lester." Weird.

Anyway, the castle was awesome, and we spent four hours there. We watched them launch the trebuchet. It's the largest trebuchet in Europe (I think). It was pretty sweet. It's one thing to see them in Lord of the Rings, but it's another to see it in real life. Guys have to pull the arm back by walking in a wheel that winds the rope down. After it's fastened, they have to go the other way on the wheels to unwind the rope (so it lets go). Then it's a matter of letting it go. It was awesome.

We also went through a haunted tower. It was supposedly really haunted, but it was basically the coolest (but shortest) haunted house I've ever seen. It was only a couple rooms, but it was awesome and scary (though haunted houses don't phase me. Seriously. A guy came up behind me completely unexpectedly and yelled, and I didn't even flinch. I was more surprised by my lack of reaction than anything. Especially because Trevor basically did the same thing later and I jumped out of my skin.)

There was one point where we climbed through three different towers. There was something like 500+ stairs. It was really cool, though the heights made me a little squeamish.

And lastly we watched a bird show. It was fun. It's not very often you get to see birds of prey up close, flying around and catching food. The last bird he showed us was really young and fairly new to flight, so we got to actually watch some of the training process as they got her to fly to the top of the tallest tower and then back again.

Now for some pictures:

The tower on the left is the haunted tower. The rest of the hill is called "The Mound". That's what it is. A mound. But it's beautiful.

This is a view of the main living part of the castle from the top of the mound.

This is me chilling with a wall picture of Prince Edward, the Black Prince. Pretty cool, huh?

And these are the Rose Gardens. They were really pretty, and outside of the castle.

Harper Regan, Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream

Harper Regan is a new show here in London at the National Theatre. It was pretty good, but also VERY weird. First of all, it was about a darker side of English culture, so a lot of times I couldn't tell if it was being really awkward or if I was just missing some sort of British thing. It was also very strange in that it ended like the Lord of the Rings- 6 times. It just dragged on, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I felt like the last scene in particular was just long and extensive for no reason. I guess overall it was a good show, but it was different from any form of theatre that I've experienced.

Taming of the Shrew was excellently done. It was set more modern day, and they kept the beginning where it's a play within a play. I thought everyone did very well. Especially Patrucio, the lead role. Kate on the other hand was kind of flat. It seemed like she was screaming sometimes just because she was supposed to be shrewish, and not for any other reason. Anyway, it was a very interesting interpretation of the show, taking a drunk guy, dressing him up and giving him power (through the role of Patrucio), then stripping it all away, leaving him in his underwear at the very end. Very interesting.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was an excellent show in every way. The fairies all had "puppets"- sometimes using creepy dolls, sometimes using various other objects, they represented the fairies and the forest. There was just enough spectacle to give it a magical touch, but not so much that it took away from the show. It was beautifully done and really inspired me to continue doing Shakespeare (and possibly direct one). One of my favorite effects was when they had bubbles drift down from the rafters (catwalk). Now you may be thinking, "What's so cool about that?" Well, apparently they fed a smoke machine into the bubble machine. So the bubbles floated down, and when they burst, little whisps of smoke dissipated into the air. It was awesome.

Three shows, three nights in a row? Pretty intense and pretty awesome. I think there are four lined up for me this week.

Tuesday and Stratford

I'm a week behind, but this is the first time I've had access to a computer for longer than 10 minutes. Midterms went well on Tuesday, though we didn't get through them all. We had presentations and two midterms for the one (technically two) class. The problem was that the presentations (of course) ended up being longer than anticipated. So we barely had time to write the first essay. We write the second one tomorrow. Then we had to perform our scenes from Midsummer Night's Dream. That went very well, and both of our teachers were impressed.

After the show Tuesday night we went out to the Sports Cafe and had fun, but of course we were out way too late. After a few short hours of sleep it was up and off to Stratford. The train ride was alright, and I slept through most of it, though I was feeling kind of sick. But we checked into our B&B (which was awesome) and then went to the Trinity Church. That's where Shakespeare is buried. It was pretty cool, though I couldn't get any pictures, because I left my camera at the B&B. After a quick dinner we went to Taming of the Shrew and then to bed.

Thursday we went around to four out of the five Shakespeare properties.

Anne Hatheway's (Shakespeare's wife) Cottage:

Mary Arden's (Shakespeare's Wife) House:Shakespeare's Birthplace:Nash's House (these are actually the gardens in the back. Nash was Shakespeare's neighbor, but Shakespeare's house was burned down. These gardens are basically where his house used to be)

After seeing Midsummer Night's Dream that night, we went out to a pub that most of the actors go to and we met one of them (a friend of our teacher). Jared and I retired early, as I was tired and hungry.

As for Friday, we didn't spend any time in Stratford so there's nothing to talk about. After returning from Warwick Castle we went back to London for a few hours of sleep before leaving for Dublin, Ireland.

Quick "Hey"

So I would LOVE to take the time right now and update on the last four days in Stratford-Upon-Avon, but unfortunately it is almost 11 and I have to get up at some rediculous hour (that I'm pretty sure starts with a 3) so we can leave for Dublin tomorrow. So, hopefully when I get back on Monday I will be able to post stories in great length about the wonderful adventures of this week. A little preview of what I'll be talking about:

Sports Cafe
Trinity Church and Shakespeare's Grave
Various Shakespeare-related Properties in the area:
His Birthplace
His mom's farm
The site of his house
His wife's childhood cottage
Warwick Castle:
Haunted Tower
Trebuchet
Bird Show
Cool Castle Exploration
Rose Gardens
Shows:
Harper Regan
Taming of the Shrew
Midsummer Night's Dream
And possibly more.

So be sure to check back then. I may get a chance in Dublin to update some stuff and I'm sure there will be much more to say about this weekend!!!

London Slideshow 1