Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Welcome, Internet, to the LAST BLOG POST EVER.
Not the last blog post I will ever make in my life. This is almost assuredly not the case. But the last post for this summer on this blog, since I am safely back in Massachusetts, the Motherland. I am able to scientifically determine this based on the number of people I saw today in Red Sox paraphernalia, and the fact that I ate peanut butter for breakfast.
MY DEAR FRIEND.
Because I know my millions of dedicated readers were wondering about my two week absence from the blogosphere, allow me to put all concerns to rest. After BADA ended, my father and I spent a week gallivanting around London. But our temporary quarters did not provide us with any sort of Internet access - not even dial-up - and it turns out that Internet access is sort of essential to, you know, blogging.
But my lack of Internet did lead to me checking my e-mail and Facebook in a bar with free wi-fi, which did, in fact, lead to a free drink.
ANYWAY.
In honor of all the unpacking I have to do, let's discuss the
25. Ticket stubs from Legally Blonde, Hamlet, The Sunshine Boys, The Tempest, The Woman in Black, Taming of the Shrew, Chariots of Fire, (a tragically cancelled performance of) Matilda: The Musical, and Richard III.
That's a lot of theatre, you guys.
Like, a LOT of theatre.
I'm gonna go ahead and say Taming was my favorite, but then again, I did sleep through The Tempest.
24. New perspective on vegetables and their usage in daily life. In the Magdalen dining hall, which is sadly somewhat bereft of vegetarian options, I constructed several excellent salad varieties. I also learned that it's possible - and customary - to get approximately 4 of your 5-a-day in a glass of Pimms!
23. The beastliest arm muscles of my life, thx Insanity.
Me (selfie)
22. The experience of playing Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, seeing as I am neither tall nor blonde.
21. A shirt with Jessie J on it, because she's up there with the fiercest of the fierce. Thank you, Primark, for this important addition to my wardrobe.
20. Comfort in knowing that even though my hand-eye coordination is miserable, I'm at least really good at Mick's One Frog game.
19. The ability to recite the monologue from Act III of Henry V on command!
Special thanks to Dakota Fanning.
18. A bruise that refuses to go away. From falling off a bar. While dancing. To a Jackson 5 song.
17. Scrapes on my knees from my starring turn as Demetrius's spaniel in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Unaware that there was a spaniel in that play? Well, there is. And the spaniel is very important.
16. A business card from a guy on the Tube who liked my shoes.
15. The experience of surviving the West End's famous production of The Woman In Black, proof that I CAN sit through ghost stories, provided I am surrounded by incredibly supportive boys.
14. Many excellent souvenirs for friends and family, including a COMMEMORATIVE BELL for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee! (I am probably the only person who has ever bought one, but whatever.)
13. A whole bunch of British pennies. But actually, what am I going to do with them? Blog readers? Would anyone like a penny?
12. Affirmation of something I already knew: that peanut butter and home-cooked pasta should never, ever be taken for granted.
11. A trashy YA dystopian novel from one of the world's greatest independent booksellers.
10. Friendship with the co-creator of Pokemon: The Mew-sical.
9. An article of clothing from Topshop.
They were on sale. I regret nothing.
8. A glass stone, the loss of my whiskeyginity, a pamphlet from a casino, and a very wrinkled bus map - spoils of war from my last night out in London.
7. Some illegal pictures from Westminster Abbey. Technically, there's no photography allowed, but I was having kind of a ~moment~ in the Poets' Corner and when I saw Auden, it just... happened:
Oops.
Also, who is Anne Brontë?
6. The memory of ninety-three acting students spontaneously singing a round of a song at the Farewell Banquet.
5. OLYMPIANS!
Okay, so I didn't manage to bring any actual Olympians home, but I did encounter them in London! My dad and I staked out prime real estate at the men's marathon - not only did we see the runners six times, but we also experienced several of the side effects of attending an Olympic event, which include the urge to drape oneself in a flag and a sudden rush of pride in every nation.
Most importantly, we saw Kenyans!
Kenyans who run as fast as Kenyans!!!
4. Pants. Lol.
3. An imperial fucktonne of pictures. My camera was the real star traveller of the last six weeks - it took over 400 photos in all places, weather conditions, you name it. I've posted some of them here; the rest are on Facebook, so check them out if we're Facebook friends and you're curious! (And if we're not Facebook friends, honestly, why are you reading this?)
2. Memories that will last a lifetime etc etc ad nauseum
And the number one thing I brought home from Britain:
1. Peace of mind knowing that I at least tried to board the Hogwarts Express.
Bringing home all of these things might have necessitated some last-minute repacking at the airport, but it's also helping with all the missing I'm doing. I miss living in a castle, I miss the friends I'll see again in Evanston and especially the friends I won't, I miss Cornmarket Street and its performers and crowds of people, I miss hearing British accents. Coming home has been, in a lot of ways, a jarring experience. Leaving the country always helps me to understand it better, and the differences between America and the UK were on full display in the line for customs:
Customs in Britain: jolly good please have your passport at the ready
Customs in the US: RESPONSIBILITY. INTEGRITY. VIGILANCE.
Customs in Britain: queue up here to cross the UK Border la la la
Customs in the US: OUR CUSTOMS OFFICIALS ARE THE MOST OFFICIAL OFFICIALS.
Customs in Britain: have you got any mates with you or are you travelling alone? Alone? Good. Off you get, then.
Customs in the US: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!
But I guess you can't ever really appreciate a place until you've been away from it for a little while. All of the ordinary perks of being home are present - warm showers in a real bathroom, food, my real cell phone, my bed... but there are other things, too, like not constantly being aware of being an outsider, having people say "have a nice day" back, being surrounded, totally, by things I understand.
I loved the misunderstanding of being somewhere else, though. In the last six weeks I was often thrilled, occasionally terrified, and consistently confused, and I loved every second of it (except for maybe the ones when I was lost in the rain). So thank you, Britain, for one of the best summers of my life. For what it's worth, I'm keeping my pay-as-you-go dumbphone from that first day with the monsoon and the pants.
I'll be back soon.
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On Wednesday, I had two life-changing experiences.
The first was in the form of a cookie. A peanut butter and milk chocolate Ben's Cookie, to be specific. You guys, I don't know what's in these cookies. Most likely drugs and aphrodisiacs and nectar of the gods. All I know for certain is that the cookie I had is probably the best thing that's ever happened to my mouth. I am enraptured thinking about it.
akdlsafkd;sgk;dg
When my friend Matt tried a Portillo's cake shake for the first time, he said, "This is the kind of moment that makes you an artist, because it changes your perception of what a milkshake can be."
The same is true of Ben's Cookies. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of the UK, or this planet, or, like, the Milky Way, go. I implore you.
My second life-changing experience came in the form of Aunt Petunia.
Once or twice a week, BADA brings in guest artists to impart their wisdom on us young and impressionable students of theatre. Last week, it was Fiona Shaw, most famous for her work in Harry Potter, but also a total theatre beast who has performed in about a million high-profile Shakespeare productions and a touring one-woman production of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. And MOST importantly, she had a recurring role in season 4 of True Blood!
(That was sarcasm, by the way. Her entire resume is way, way cooler than True Blood.)
The point is, Fiona Shaw is a genius. She's down to earth in a be-my-best-friend way - although fully aware of the fact that she really knows what's up - and sassy and funny and full of life. There wasn't a single dull moment in the entire master class. It could have gone on for six hours and I don't think anyone would have complained. And if you really want to know how incredible she is, I was so enthralled with how she was working that I completely forgot I was watching Aunt Petunia. And it takes a lot for my Harry Potter-wired brain to do that.
I didn't work with her personally, but I still learned so much. I don't think I stopped taking notes the entire time. Here is some
+ In English, we tend to speak in C Major. In Ireland, they speak in a minor key.
+ All you have to bring to a role, essentially, is yourself. "Keep the things that are uniquely your own, but find the universal truth. No, not the universal truth - forget I said that. Find the 'thing.'"
+ “Never allow yourself to be entirely in control of the ‘thing’. There is a gap between desire to be triumphant and natural human failure.”
+ "There is nothing normal about ordinary speech if it's on the stage."
+ When asked how she chooses projects, Fiona responded, "Oh, in my experience... things tend to choose you."
+ "If you have a grand speech, do it in a loo."
+ "It is tragedy, not heroism, that makes tragic heroes interesting."
+ "Artists paint skulls in the desert because they're there. Create the art that's there."
And finally -
+ On bringing herself to a role: "It's only you if it's scary for you to be you."
Vulnerability in the creative process. I think that's the 'thing.'
I can't possibly translate this woman's amazingness into the language of a blog post. She was just everything.
Now let's discuss the Olympics. There are TVs in a grand total of zero locations at Magdalen College, so most of BADA travelled to Copa, that swanky bar that nearly bounced me that one time. Since that unfortunate occurrence I've been determined to go back dressed to the nines and experience Copa in all of its Brit pop-blasting, alcohol-saturated glory. I could not have asked for a better first Copa adventure than attending during the Opening Ceremonies.
10. Epic Kenneth Branaugh being epic.
9. Cheering loudly for the obscurest of nations. Federated States of Micronesia YEAH
8. The Independent Olympic Athletes. I don't know who you are, but I salute you. And your krumping.
7. Playing the Industrial-Revolution-or-District-12? game.
6. HUGE INFLATABLE VOLDEMORT. And just generally realizing how grateful I am to Britain for giving me my literary childhood.
5. Sometime around the E-countries, Copa came to life. The lights went down and British pop music came on, and suddenly we were all watching the Olympics and dancing to Queen.
4. David Beckham + torch + boat.
3. Finding out Mr. Bean has the same fantasies that I do!
3. The moment when all of the fiery rings came together.
2. Being in a bar in Britain and yelling absurdly for the United States with a hundred other Americans.
1. JK Rowling reading Peter Pan. I may or may not have burst into tears.
I sort of hate to refer to things as triumphs of the human spirit because I think it's rarely true, but the Olympics actually fit that description. And the watching the Opening Ceremony an hour away from where it was taking place, surrounded by drunk patriots, drenched in Brit-pop and celebration and the beer someone spilled on me - it was the best possible reminder that though we might live in an imperfect world, we are part of something extraordinary.
Okay. Done being serious.
Yesterday, I partook in another important British cultural experience, as well as an actor's rite of passage: a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of
this guy.
Stratford is a town full of possibilities. In ten hours, I saw the possible birthplace of the man who was possibly the greatest writer of all time. I rubbed the stone upon which said man's possible father possibly sold gloves. I even saw the place where he was possibly buried!
I almost napped in this church. If it's a good enough resting place for Shakespeare, it's a good enough napping place for me.
Secretly though, the man who was possibly Shakespeare was possibly kind of a jerk. He possibly cheated on his wife, which put him in bad standing with the church. Luckily, he was possibly wealthy enough to buy prime real estate for his grave.
I should probably cut Stratford some slack, since it's difficult to be certain of anything that happened like 450 years ago. Possibilities and all, it's a pretty righteous place. They sell baguettes on boats!
Best barge experience ever.
Theatre is everywhere. Of course, there's the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company, where all of BADA saw a production of The Tempest last night. But there's also park where you can see free live performances of shows performed on a barely-there set by costumeless actors surrounded by trees where people have hung poems, As You Like It-style.
You're like a baby kangaroo
Short, brown, and chubby
Oh, Joey.
As You Like It As We Like It, amirite 10 Day Shakespeare?
I'm pretty sure Stratford also employs a group of people whose sole job is to create relevant puns. Shakesbeer is on tap at every pub, Shakesbears sold in every gift shop. The gift shops, by the way, are excellent. I bought some souvenirs for people (Reid... get excited), and came thisclose to purchasing a bright pink quill, because how awful/hilarious/awful would it be to walk in with it on the first day of fiction sequence?
Am I a Serious Writer yet?
But enough of this. I must away. In about an hour, award-winning playwright, DePaul/Yale School of Drama/BADA alum, and Steppenwolf ensemble member Tarell Alvin McCraney is visiting for a Q&A!!! If there's anyone who can give me answers to the questions I have as a student of theatre, it's him.
