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.