Antiquated Antics

I am happiest when I'm busiest, so I have been doing alright since coming back to England. Lots of running around and activities, including last weekend when I participated in a couple of Yee Olde Thyngs.

Saturday, Red, Tanya and I went to a hotel just outside town to do a falconry workshop. I had a (knowingly) inflated image of what it would entail, envisioning us using birds of prey to hunt in some kind of wooded glen, while Red was of the opinion that it was going to be a lecture with live visual props. Happily, our session landed somewhere in the middle, when us being given a lot of information on the types of birds (barn owls, horned owl, falcon, hawk) while they flew to us and perched on our arms or just chilled out on our hand. The falcon sounds the most badass, but the I had a lot more fun with the owls. Molly, the barn owl, was this gorgeous white and kind of gold and was so soft and light. I wanted to steal her. Alfie, the horned owl (pictured, on my arm), just constantly made me giggle because he kept doing this sassy little head dance and had eyes that looked like a Jim Henson character. So cool.

That night Zach and Claire came to town for a few days and Sunday we trekked off with Jason, Tanya and Jamie to Kenilworth Castle, which was doing a medieval festival complete with JOUSTING. We had time to kill before the contest began, so we used the time to get and eat delicious roast pork and stuffing sandwiches (twice) and then load up on bottles of mead. Bottles in hand, we set up camp by the tiltyard and had a merry afternoon drinking in the sunlight before the champions took the field. Never one to pass up a good tourist souvenir, I had bought a flag proclaiming my loyalty to JAMES BABBINGTON OF THE NORTH. The joust itself was quite exciting, with a number of lances shattering with a great shows of splintered wood going every which way. My champion did not win, sadly, but that didn't take away from the general enjoyment of a very fun afternoon.

London Theatre Weekend

Right after returning to Strats, I headed back out for one last mini-trip. It was only to London and only for three days, but in that time I did a lot...most of it theatrically based.

Saturday was a trip to the Hampstead to see the Troupe's current our one last time and hang out with the lovely Naomi, a fabulous friend from my days stomping around the West End in a burgundy waistcoat. The shows were amazing, as usual. I am so tiresome when I talk about the productions in a casual forum like this because all I do is pull out a few synonyms for "great" and leave it at that...I promise when I write academically, it's more substantial. One of the guys was out for 'HV,' so I got to see the slight rearranging that comes with a spur-of-the-moment casting change, which is always good fun. There were individual moments in both shows I have seen done stronger/better but, overall, I thought the performances on Saturday from individuals in the company were some of the best I've seen. Plus, Naomi is the perfect date, caring as much as I do for Shakespeare and theatre and a blast to talk to about such things.

The actors I ran into before and after the show were all super sweet and peppered me with questions about when they would get to read things. The answer is always "when there is a a 'Dr.' in front of my name," but I appreciate the interest/enthusiasm. Who wouldn't?

Sunday was GATZ, a staged reading/performance piece/theatrical presentation of 'The Great Gatsby' in its entirety. It was...amazing? I think? I have been struggling to form an opinion of the show since Jason and I left the theatre and it continues to elude me because I feel what I liked about it came more from Fitzgerald's prose than from any theatrical place and I'm not sure how i feel about that. At the same time, the performances were strong, there were a lot of clever touches and they managed to make 8hr go by like no time at all.

Monday, Jason and I had time to kill before our train and so wound up at Kensington Palace. The Palace has been recently...re-designed? refurbished? re-done? so that more of it is dedicated to exhibitions. We learned about Victoria and Albert, Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the death of Prince William (heir to William and Mary). The best part, though, was the king's apartments. They were se up has a game where you collected cards in each room. Jason and I were terrible at the game because we didn't follow the rules, but in our failure to do what we were told we started playing Gin Rummy in the State Room, drawing the attention of a courtier (aka, guide) who taught us Commerce in exchange for dancing lessons. Which is how Jason and I wound up doing a masque dance in the King's state rooms of Kensington Palace.

Day 456 - 476

Oh, hello, England.

For the past month(ish) I have been traveling around N. America in the usual summer flurry of visits and catch-ups. Here's how it went

June 8: Land in DC
June 9-16: Toronto. Watch my sister graduate (with honors!). Go to a Jays/Nats game and see what Bryce Harper is all about. Eat one of the best meals of my life. Repeat. Stub my toe and faint. See NT Encore's showing of 'Frankenstein.' Consume all the sweet potato fries. Debate whether Puff Daddy or Picasso would make a better butler. Play 'Dreamphone.' Have a Nutella latte. Sing-talk with my sister for a week straight.
June 16-19: DC. Go to 90's themed birthday party and clean up at beer pong. Drink lots of wine and eat Thai food while watching HIMYM with my bestie. Hide from the oppressive heat.
June 20-23: Colorado. Go to Sonic. Find out what drinking is like at altitude. Narrowly avoid getting caught up in a Cowboy-bar-bar-fight. Do an interpretive dance for street musicians. Storm a 7-11 like in Mission: Impossible. Perform 'Colors of the Wind' in front of a church. Perfect a silly walk and a dip for the processional. Eat more amazing food. See a midnight showing of 'Brave.' Have my hair and make-up done three nights in a row. Dance to the 'Glee' soundtrack. Win Bridal Party Wars: 2012. Celebrate the marriage of two of my favorite people...ever.
June 23-30: Delaware. Enjoy the company of a large group of amazing people/friends. Celebrate two of them getting engaged. Learn how to play Beiritz. Read a lot. Play Solitaire. Eat eat eat. Drink drink drink. Have really great conversations with people between the hours of 2-4am. Dance. A lot. Avoid getting sunburned. Swim. Heckle a softball game. Watch a pretty spectacular lightning storm. Avoid the perils of Bourbon Pong. Appreciate the people in my life.
July 1-6: Lake George. See my grandma, uncle and some childhood friends. Sleep. A lot. Reclaim the porch swing. Find $10 jeans. Catch a double-feature at the drive-in with Mom. Go out on my cousin's boat and eat lunch in the bay. Nap. Sing along to '1776.' Watch the fireworks from town. Go antiquing. Feel better about life. See my cousins, uncles and aunt on the way home.
July 7-12: DC. One last party. See and catch-up with great people over brunch, lunch and coffee. Continue to hide from the heat. Return to Nanny's, break the rules and yet still lose trivia. Don't care. See my friends' new apartment and connect with their incredibly fat cats. Go to Target. See 'Moonrise Kingdom.' Debate vehemently with my father over the female characters in 'The Newsroom.' Hang out with my parents. Pack, one last time.
July 13-16: London. To be covered in a future post.
July 16: Strats.

The trip itself was pretty good. A lot of fun times/experiences and it always warms my heart to see my people. That said, running through it was a deep sadness and uncertainty about having to leave them again and come back here for two years. The distance is definitely getting harder and April-June was a particularly difficult time, mentally speaking. But. I'm back now and I think it's going to be okay, partially because of a perfect weekend I had in London, which I'll get to later, and partially because I could find myself stateside a bit more frequently in 2013. At least, the potential is there.

Keep calm and carry on, right? Right.

Fashion Plate

A lot of things relating to my quest to become a "real" person have suffered by my returning to school. The ability to wake up before 10am, for example. My laundry schedule. Knowledge of anything pertaining to politics. The list is lengthy, but, out of everything, I think the thing that most separates me from my peers who have embraced quasi-adulthood is how I dress.

It is 1:30pm in Her Majesty's realm. What am I wearing? A black tank-top nightgown, a hooded beach cover-up, purple polka-dot socks (which, due to my sister owning a similar pair, are mismatched) and cheap boat shoes that are covered in glitter. The boat shoes are unusual (I have to break them in for a party tomorrow), but the rest...practically a uniform.

To be entirely fair, the nightgown is usually yoga pants and some kind of long, oversized sweater often makes an appearance. But really, I live in pajamas. Not the ones I sleep in! I keep 'day pajamas' separated from 'night pajamas.' But, pajamas just the same. I tweeted the other day that if the old saying "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" is true, then what I really want to be is not an academic but a mid-90s sitcom character suffering from a break-up. It's a comfort thing. I work primarily from home, and there isn't a ton of motivation to put together a nice outfit that will be only be seen by my mirror. And when I do go out into the real world, I take them time to look presentable, I do. But sometimes I wish that was part of my life more frequently.

But, then again, my neighbors would be robbed of the joy of running into me in my awesome ensemble, and that would surely be a tragedy.

Slamming Doors

Last night, as I was cutting through the dressing rooms to take my break, I happened upon an extra for the current production hiding in a garment rack in the hallway. She was on the phone, huddled between a neon track suit and a large Elizabethan dress, and as I walked by I heard the tail end of her conversation: "I have to hang up, Mummy, I have to go on stage...there's a door that needs slamming." I cannot express to you the level of fatigue, frustration, boredom and eye rolling that went into that last bit. "There's a door that needs slamming...because that is my life. I have to slam doors. Whoop-de-do. I bet this isn't the life you imagined for me, eh, mom? The glamorous life of your actor-daughter."

My first reaction was delight. I've mentioned before how much I love this little backstage slices, little pictures of people actually being people in between being princes or maids or fairies or what have you. My second reaction was something more along the lines of "oh, get over yourself." You are acting with one of the premiere companies in the world. You are getting to do what you want AND in such a way as pay the bills. Slam that door with joy and gusto, young lady!

Thing is...I can't really get all high and mighty about enjoying amazing opportunities because I have been doing a piss poor job of appreciating my own good fortunes, recently. This mostly stems from a lingering feeling of insecurity about my choices. I know how to sleep in until the early afternoon, watch American television and go drinking with friends. I am confident in these abilities! I feel I have mastered these areas of study! I am often less sure about my ability to write coherent, brilliant, insightful pieces about an amazing theatre company. What I need to be more cognisant of is that I don't have to do this— I get to. I get to! And that is crazy! And since I get to, I better damn well take advantage of the chance and do the best damn job I can.

And if it all goes to hell, America will be there to take the sting out of it, a bit.

With that, back to the re-write I go.

Wonderland

This morning I took advantage of the Company's training program and went on a tour of their workshop, just on the edge of Strats. The workshop is a huge building that looks kind of like an over-sized storage container, like the kind from season 2 of The Wire (but without the dead Russian prostitutes). It houses the Company's construction, metal work and paint departments as well as the costume and prop storage.

It. Was. Awesome.

The carpentry room was a cavernous space and, actually, was kind of quiet. Since there are a bunch of shows being loaded in as we speak, there was a ton of activity, save for a huge Styrofoam sculpture that was waiting to be painted. The paint room, however, was pretty awesome. Three paint-splattered women were working on a variety of  projects, including making a wood staircase look like it was made from marble, and all of them immediately reminded me of the girls I used to hero-worship in high school. The whole back wall of the shop is a movable frame that disappears into the floor, to aid in painting large pieces, and the other walls all had sample bits of textures, like peeling wallpaper and brick and such, on big flats.

The prop workshop was barely viewed, because it was such a small space, but from peeking around the corner I could see an 8-ft fish hanging from the ceiling, just in front of a huge net of fish that was sitting on a 1930's art deco bed, next to a red telephone booth. There were (fake) dead animals hanging from the ceiling and what I think was a mummy at one point, as well as boxes and boxes of pieces of...whatever...stacked everywhere.

That brief peek in to the props workshop would have been incredible enough, but then. Oh then.

Props storage.

There is a quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: "Poor people have a great passion for huge quantities of things." I have been lucky enough to never be more than graduate-student poor, but I identify with the statement. I love seeing Lots of Things. There is something just so comforting about it.

The props storage facility was everything I could dream of and more. Walls of suitcases! Rooms and rooms of chairs! Bins of flags! Boxes of ropes, shelves of biscuit tins, five statues of the Virgin, two racks of test tubes, a lion's head and a Vespa! Shrines! Perfume bottles! Books! Fake limbs! A room of crowns! I could go on and on and on. I wanted to live there...well, maybe just in the daytime. At night, it would be terrifying.

And then we left via costume storage, where we were given 10 minutes to wander the costume racks and finger all of the gorgeous dresses, capes, doublets, robes, shawls, veils and petticoats.

Theatre, man. I just...I love it.

Day of (all the) rest

"What's a weekend?" is a question famously put forth by the Dowager Countess on everyone's favorite Edwardian soap opera 'Downton Abbey.' A hilarious indicator of how old fashioned and utterly upper crust she is, it is, actually, a question I could quite rightly ask as a graduate student. When you work from home and your schedule is totally your own, it's hard to remember what regimented time off is.

This is something I constantly struggle with, as I always feel like I should be working. It's the problem with having everything on my computer..I always have the capacity to be writing/reading, even if I'm catching up on TV, watching a movie or talking to friends. Thus, my leisure time gets tainted by work and my work gets distracted by leisure. A balancing act, for sure.

Except for Sunday! I still work on Sunday, usually last minute attempts to finish self-assigned projects before my occasional study group meetings, but it is ALSO the day I put aside for all things house related. Laundry gets done on Sunday, remaining dishes get washed, the living room gets put back together (save for the blanket fort, which will remain standing for this week), mail gets sorted, sheets get changed...it's a whirlwind adventure of fun. I say that somewhat sarcastically, and yet, I always look forward to Sunday because it's time set aside for a specific purpose and a way to accomplish a lot of little tangible things.