Last weekend was my final weekend of going and seeing plays for the time being. When I got down to London, it was a bit strange because I couldn’t really think of where I wanted to go. I had been to much of what I had wanted to see of the city. Mostly I ended up walking around, killing time in the Burlington Arcades and in bookshops. The arcades were pretty cool just because they had a lot of used watch stores. Those who know me best know that I like a good watch. They had used watches by Omega, Breitling, Jaeger LeCoultre, Rolex… there was one store entirely devoted to vintage Rolex. They had Rolex’s from the twenties and even earlier. It was interesting for me to see that just because of how the company had evolved some of its designs in the past decades.
I did walk the down the Mall which is the road that leads up to Buckingham Palace. I also ate in a restaurant which had really crappy Disney muzak playing constantly on repeat. If I had to work there I would want to kill myself or if I didn’t, I slowly would have been driven insane.
The play I saw this past Friday was The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. It starred Jonathon Pryce as one of the main characters. He would be most notable to American audiences has having played the main villain in Tomorrow Never Dies. It was a good production. Pinter has a knack for dialogue as well as pauses which have been analyzed and debated over by scholars and critics alike. I had taken a class last year in which we had to read The Homecoming by him. There were lots of pauses in that too. This has also been one of my favorite theatre going experiences which was almost toppled by the following day’s production
Enron, a play about greed and corporate corruption based on that infamous company’s history integrating musical numbers, video clips as well as a lot of other symbols and metaphors I can’t even really begin to describe. They had business men dressed in suits wearing mouse heads using walking sticks for the blind. Three blind mice. They had men wearing raptor masks symbolizing the company’s other companies where they would dump all their debt. They had lightsabers representing how they had paralyzed California in the early 2000’s once the state had deregulated its energy holdings allowing the energy companies to raise prices astronomically. It was bleak, bitter, dark satire of the postmodern kind. It was one hell of a show which had me in hysterics at several points in the production.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
London Weekend Number Two
A few weeks ago, I went back down to London. I had planned three weekends of constantly seeing plays as well as being able to sightsee whilst being down there.
This time, I went down there and the major sights that I saw were St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern art museum.
St. Paul’s was a brilliant sight. It’s probably the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen. It’s also the biggest. Its construction is made up of three domes, one on top of the other. The first dome holds the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower on top of it.
I couldn’t get any photos inside because the security personnel on sight had said that no pictures were aloud. I complied just for worry of getting chucked out. I didn’t go up to the very top also because I didn’t have time nor did I really want to. I did however go up to the top of the interior. It was a bit creepy being that high up. It was also a bit exhausting. The top of the interior contains the whispering gallery. One is able to lean against the wall, whisper and it goes across the room. As long as you have your ear pressed to the side of the dome you are able to hear what the other person is saying. This is possible because it is a perfect circle. One of the staff members demonstrated this to me by having me go across the interior of the dome stopping at several points. He would then whisper to me as I proceeding from one door to the next. It was pretty cool and I had a smile on my face every time it worked. I left shortly thereafter.
I headed across the Thames to the Tate Modern. Inside were all of these weird impressionist paintings by modern artist. All of it was very… strange. Unintelligible. I only recognized a few of the artists: Jackson Pollock and Fernand Lédger. I couldn’t really begin to name the rest. It was interesting stuff but I preferred the National Gallery. I did appreciate the fact that it was a free gallery though. It is free because it is subsidized by the government.
Afterward I got dinner and then went to the play for the evening. An Inspector Calls. It was an interesting show. The special effects were pretty nifty and I was impressed that the actors breaking props was part of the show. In fact part of the stage lifts up and dumps out most of this table from inside of a mock house. That was pretty nifty. It was an entertaining, suspenseful and at times creepy production.
The next day after checking out of my hotel, I went to Hyde Park. While most of London, especially the touristy parts of London, is full of hustle and bustle, this place was full of a sense of calm. I wish I was there when the flowers were in bloom because it then would have been an impressive site. Oh well, one can imagine.
The play for this afternoon was The Woman in Black. This production has been running since 1989 in the same theatre, the Fortune theatre. It’s a horror play which also works as meta-theatre as one character tells his story to an actor to learn how he can tell the story to his family. It begins slowly but this is there for us to get to know the characters. It’s quite a funny bit at the beginning. The play actually does become quite scary with doors opening and the ghost of the woman in black showing up at certain points in the play but is it maybe that she is showing up in real life? We don’t know until the very end. On paper, reading the play, I don’t think it would be that horrifying of an experience. On stage however, when a play can come alive, it does become quite freaky. The audience screamed quite a lot and then would stop laugh at the fact that they were screaming. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t make it any less scary. Like a good horror movie, this play utilized sound and hardly relied on cheap scares evoking atmosphere rather than just have “gotcha” moments. There still are those “gotcha” moments but they happen few and far between.
This time, I went down there and the major sights that I saw were St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern art museum.
St. Paul’s was a brilliant sight. It’s probably the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen. It’s also the biggest. Its construction is made up of three domes, one on top of the other. The first dome holds the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower on top of it.
I couldn’t get any photos inside because the security personnel on sight had said that no pictures were aloud. I complied just for worry of getting chucked out. I didn’t go up to the very top also because I didn’t have time nor did I really want to. I did however go up to the top of the interior. It was a bit creepy being that high up. It was also a bit exhausting. The top of the interior contains the whispering gallery. One is able to lean against the wall, whisper and it goes across the room. As long as you have your ear pressed to the side of the dome you are able to hear what the other person is saying. This is possible because it is a perfect circle. One of the staff members demonstrated this to me by having me go across the interior of the dome stopping at several points. He would then whisper to me as I proceeding from one door to the next. It was pretty cool and I had a smile on my face every time it worked. I left shortly thereafter.
I headed across the Thames to the Tate Modern. Inside were all of these weird impressionist paintings by modern artist. All of it was very… strange. Unintelligible. I only recognized a few of the artists: Jackson Pollock and Fernand Lédger. I couldn’t really begin to name the rest. It was interesting stuff but I preferred the National Gallery. I did appreciate the fact that it was a free gallery though. It is free because it is subsidized by the government.
Afterward I got dinner and then went to the play for the evening. An Inspector Calls. It was an interesting show. The special effects were pretty nifty and I was impressed that the actors breaking props was part of the show. In fact part of the stage lifts up and dumps out most of this table from inside of a mock house. That was pretty nifty. It was an entertaining, suspenseful and at times creepy production.
The next day after checking out of my hotel, I went to Hyde Park. While most of London, especially the touristy parts of London, is full of hustle and bustle, this place was full of a sense of calm. I wish I was there when the flowers were in bloom because it then would have been an impressive site. Oh well, one can imagine.
The play for this afternoon was The Woman in Black. This production has been running since 1989 in the same theatre, the Fortune theatre. It’s a horror play which also works as meta-theatre as one character tells his story to an actor to learn how he can tell the story to his family. It begins slowly but this is there for us to get to know the characters. It’s quite a funny bit at the beginning. The play actually does become quite scary with doors opening and the ghost of the woman in black showing up at certain points in the play but is it maybe that she is showing up in real life? We don’t know until the very end. On paper, reading the play, I don’t think it would be that horrifying of an experience. On stage however, when a play can come alive, it does become quite freaky. The audience screamed quite a lot and then would stop laugh at the fact that they were screaming. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t make it any less scary. Like a good horror movie, this play utilized sound and hardly relied on cheap scares evoking atmosphere rather than just have “gotcha” moments. There still are those “gotcha” moments but they happen few and far between.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Waiting for Godot
The final play I saw this past weekend was Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. This play is one of the fundamental plays which any English major… no, which any human being should read. Beckett is an Irish playwright who wrote his major works in French. One of his other more famous works was Endgame which I saw last December. Personally I think Endgame is better but Godot is the more famous or infamous of the two.
The plot revolves around two characters, Estragon and Vladimir as the wait by a tree for a man named Godot (who never shows up). Two other characters, Lucky and Pozzo show up. Pozzo is a fat, bulbous bald man who smokes a pipe and Lucky is a mute who carries Pozzo’s bags and wears a noose as a leash. Lucky only has one major monologue in the play but it is quite the speech which may or may not make perfect sense.
That is the point of the play. It is the absurdity of them waiting for a man who may not ever come, which may not even exist yet they still wait.
It is the quintessential existential question: why do something for your life for which there may be no reward? What is the point? All these questions are coalescing throughout the play. In fact, Estragon even asks why they don’t just leave at numerous points in the play.
This production stars Ian McKellen as Estragon. He is the biggest name in the production. He starred in the X Men movies as Magneto and, more famously, as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings series.
It was a phenomenal production with a fairly apocalyptic set. There was dust and broken planks of wood strewn throughout the stage. It was a fairly spectacularly visceral set. The play, despite being quite cynical and apocalyptic is also quite funny. It is tragic but it does it in such a light hearted way that it is easy to forget how heartbreaking the end really was. It is an absurd play but it is one which is quite funny.
I feel lucky as an English major to have been able to see both of Beckett’s quintessential works in such a short time period in London.
Afterwards I got dinner and caught my train back home.
The plot revolves around two characters, Estragon and Vladimir as the wait by a tree for a man named Godot (who never shows up). Two other characters, Lucky and Pozzo show up. Pozzo is a fat, bulbous bald man who smokes a pipe and Lucky is a mute who carries Pozzo’s bags and wears a noose as a leash. Lucky only has one major monologue in the play but it is quite the speech which may or may not make perfect sense.
That is the point of the play. It is the absurdity of them waiting for a man who may not ever come, which may not even exist yet they still wait.
It is the quintessential existential question: why do something for your life for which there may be no reward? What is the point? All these questions are coalescing throughout the play. In fact, Estragon even asks why they don’t just leave at numerous points in the play.
This production stars Ian McKellen as Estragon. He is the biggest name in the production. He starred in the X Men movies as Magneto and, more famously, as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings series.
It was a phenomenal production with a fairly apocalyptic set. There was dust and broken planks of wood strewn throughout the stage. It was a fairly spectacularly visceral set. The play, despite being quite cynical and apocalyptic is also quite funny. It is tragic but it does it in such a light hearted way that it is easy to forget how heartbreaking the end really was. It is an absurd play but it is one which is quite funny.
I feel lucky as an English major to have been able to see both of Beckett’s quintessential works in such a short time period in London.
Afterwards I got dinner and caught my train back home.
Museums
The following morning I checked out of my hotel after getting breakfast.
I decided to go to the London Film Museum which is right next to the London Eye. It was alright. Some of the props there were interesting but for the price I paid, I was expecting to see a few more props from more well known movies. Some of the people who were working the job obviously didn’t want to be there. Some looked annoyed and some were peppy. I suppose that is like any job. Especially one as mundane as working in a film museum.
The coolest prop there was the carbonite slab of Han Solo from The Empire Strikes Back. The also had the Alien queen from Aliens as well as the wet suit worn by Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity. I forgot to take a photo of some of these props.
After that I went to Covent Garden Market again. I got lunch at an outdoor Italian restaurant. It was okay though overpriced.
I went to Trafalgar Square and went to the National Gallery. They had a wide range of paintings there. Some I’m sure I’ve seen before in an English Anthology along the line. They had paintings there by Degas, Monet (or Manet I can’t remember… or both), Pissarro, Seurat and many others. The building itself was a work of art as well. Beautiful. The best part of it was that the entry was free. They are government funded and because of this, it is open to the public. They do have donations boxes in front of the entryways.
No pictures were allowed at all. In fact there was more than one occasion when a guard had to tell patrons to delete a photo that they had just taken.
I sat in awe in front of those paintings.
I decided to go to the London Film Museum which is right next to the London Eye. It was alright. Some of the props there were interesting but for the price I paid, I was expecting to see a few more props from more well known movies. Some of the people who were working the job obviously didn’t want to be there. Some looked annoyed and some were peppy. I suppose that is like any job. Especially one as mundane as working in a film museum.
The coolest prop there was the carbonite slab of Han Solo from The Empire Strikes Back. The also had the Alien queen from Aliens as well as the wet suit worn by Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity. I forgot to take a photo of some of these props.
After that I went to Covent Garden Market again. I got lunch at an outdoor Italian restaurant. It was okay though overpriced.
I went to Trafalgar Square and went to the National Gallery. They had a wide range of paintings there. Some I’m sure I’ve seen before in an English Anthology along the line. They had paintings there by Degas, Monet (or Manet I can’t remember… or both), Pissarro, Seurat and many others. The building itself was a work of art as well. Beautiful. The best part of it was that the entry was free. They are government funded and because of this, it is open to the public. They do have donations boxes in front of the entryways.
No pictures were allowed at all. In fact there was more than one occasion when a guard had to tell patrons to delete a photo that they had just taken.
I sat in awe in front of those paintings.
Six Degrees of Separation
I went to the Old Vic Theatre to see Six Degrees of Separation. The plot revolves around a young con artist who pretends to be the son of Sidney Poitier as he dupes an affluent couple in New York City. The character himself also happens to be gay but that really isn’t a major element to the character. It is just a part of him. This play is not a social critique nor is it one for understanding of the gay community. It just happens to have a character that is gay and is a con artist.
The set was pretty minimal. It involved a painting on both sides hanging from a wire. Red partitions which could be pulled backwards and a couch in the center of the stage which could revolve around. The floor was all red.
The performers were all really good. This was just a one act play at 90 minutes but it flowed beautifully. Ninety minutes is still a long time and if there is a dull moment it’s noticeable. With this play there was never a dull moment. There was drama and comedy mixed easily. One unfortunate character, he ends up killing himself, leaves the stage into the shadows. We know by this action what his fate is going to be. Passing into the shadows of death. Powerful stuff.
The main idea of the play, the theme is that we are all interconnected by six people. So, in theory, I am at the most six people away from everybody else. The idea is that we are all linked. In this play, the con artist character acts as a linchpin for all the other people. He connects a young couple from Utah to the wealthy art collector to the art collector’s children to another student at MIT to the police officer and even the doorman.
It was a good show and it was a wonderful way to end the evening. Afterwards I headed back to my hotel. I stopped off at a nearby pub and had a pint of ale and a bottle of Budweiser Budvar. Both were glorious.
The set was pretty minimal. It involved a painting on both sides hanging from a wire. Red partitions which could be pulled backwards and a couch in the center of the stage which could revolve around. The floor was all red.
The performers were all really good. This was just a one act play at 90 minutes but it flowed beautifully. Ninety minutes is still a long time and if there is a dull moment it’s noticeable. With this play there was never a dull moment. There was drama and comedy mixed easily. One unfortunate character, he ends up killing himself, leaves the stage into the shadows. We know by this action what his fate is going to be. Passing into the shadows of death. Powerful stuff.
The main idea of the play, the theme is that we are all interconnected by six people. So, in theory, I am at the most six people away from everybody else. The idea is that we are all linked. In this play, the con artist character acts as a linchpin for all the other people. He connects a young couple from Utah to the wealthy art collector to the art collector’s children to another student at MIT to the police officer and even the doorman.
It was a good show and it was a wonderful way to end the evening. Afterwards I headed back to my hotel. I stopped off at a nearby pub and had a pint of ale and a bottle of Budweiser Budvar. Both were glorious.
Covent Garden
After I saw Ghosts I continued to walk around for a while. I had a few hours to kill between that play and my next one. I crammed them in. It was more economical as well as more fun to do it that way. I also saw two on Saturday because I knew I would be exhausted from Friday.
I wandered into Covent Garden Market. Who doesn’t like open air markets? Some of the stores and stalls were selling overpriced junk, yes but still… it was a brilliant place. I had run into it the night prior by mistake but didn’t realize what it was and I didn’t stick around for very long.
I did manage to find a stall which was selling artistic renderings of famous movie stills or of famous musical artists. I bought three. Steve McQueen in Bullitt, Pulp Fiction and The Rolling Stones. I might buy three more next weekend when I’m down there again.
I headed across the Thames towards Waterloo station. I found a place to eat. I had fish and chips. They also were doing cocktails. I bought an old fashioned. It’s one of my favorite drinks. If Don Draper of Mad Men likes it, then that’s good enough for me.
I wandered into Covent Garden Market. Who doesn’t like open air markets? Some of the stores and stalls were selling overpriced junk, yes but still… it was a brilliant place. I had run into it the night prior by mistake but didn’t realize what it was and I didn’t stick around for very long.
I did manage to find a stall which was selling artistic renderings of famous movie stills or of famous musical artists. I bought three. Steve McQueen in Bullitt, Pulp Fiction and The Rolling Stones. I might buy three more next weekend when I’m down there again.
I headed across the Thames towards Waterloo station. I found a place to eat. I had fish and chips. They also were doing cocktails. I bought an old fashioned. It’s one of my favorite drinks. If Don Draper of Mad Men likes it, then that’s good enough for me.
Ghosts
The play I saw in the afternoon was Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. It’s a Victorian play revolving around the sins of the father tainting an entire family. It’s a social critique play. I think the play is a well written play and it was well acted for the most part. There was one performer, the son who has syphilis, which was kind of a boring performance. He felt like he was in there for pretty obvious drama and he really only played him in the standard fashion of always having this glazed look over his eyes. I get it, you’ve gone crazy.
The other actors did a fine job especially the man who played the minister character as well as the woman who played the wife. It ended though in a lackluster fashion. I understood the dramatic weight of it but it didn’t pack the emotional punch it should have.
The set was well done, minor in detail but heavy on placement.
I also enjoyed the theatre itself. It was the Duchess. I saw Endgame in there last December. It is a very small theatre. There really isn’t a bad seat in the house. You are always going to have a perfect view of the action while also feeling especially close to the stage. This may not have been my favorite play but The Duchess is probably my favorite theatre mainly due to its size and providing such an intimate space for drama to unfold.
The other actors did a fine job especially the man who played the minister character as well as the woman who played the wife. It ended though in a lackluster fashion. I understood the dramatic weight of it but it didn’t pack the emotional punch it should have.
The set was well done, minor in detail but heavy on placement.
I also enjoyed the theatre itself. It was the Duchess. I saw Endgame in there last December. It is a very small theatre. There really isn’t a bad seat in the house. You are always going to have a perfect view of the action while also feeling especially close to the stage. This may not have been my favorite play but The Duchess is probably my favorite theatre mainly due to its size and providing such an intimate space for drama to unfold.
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