Day two and on: Lauryl and I joined up with the rest of the Theatre in England group (after, of course, the requisite "I'm so SCARED" lunch together before the opening meeting), and met not only the entire group, but also the members of the Shakespeare School - people about our age there to study Shakespearean Performance. It was rather funny our initial impressions of everyone - and those we thought at first were really neat people turned out somewhat otherwise, and, much to our joy, those that we didn't think much of anything either way of to begin with turned out to be just peachy keen, and, even better, some of those who looked like nifty people at the beginning really WERE nifty people and came to Bath with us. : )

At this point, our days became routine. We had class in the morning with Vivien and Bernie - two prominent Shakespearean verse actors whose M.O. was to plunk us all down on the first day, give out additional lines to memorise, and tell us to put "capital letters" on the last word of every line. I, alas, ended up with the first line of our little play (various scenes from Sh., entitled "Shakespeare ON Love"), and I still think with some little shudder about failing miserably to hit just the right pitch for, "Good SHEPherd! Tell this YOUTH what 'tis to LOVE!" (No no no darling, you dropped "love," there. Throw it to Nathan, darling. You can't just drop it, see? [With a charming smile] And once they saw you were about to weep, Bernie would come in with a "Well, whatever, whatever," and they'd turn their strange attentions to the fellow who you'd just spent the last ten minutes attempting to "throw a line to by not dropping it and putting a capital letter on it - whatever that means!") The good part was that the drilling Lau and I had done with each other on our various lines came in super well and we were able to recite our lines on the first read-through without looking at them for the most part! Yippee!

We'd then have an hour (ha ha) for lunch, and then return to class, this time with everyone in the group. These meetings consisted mainly of discussing (read: shoving your opinions down everyone else's throat, and citing such sources as, "Well, when I saw Sir Lawrence Olivier play this at the RSC in '69...!) the play we'd seen the night before. If we were very good, an actor, and sometimes a director, would come in and allow us to bombard him with questions about his performance. Some notables we saw in these sessions included Patrick Stewart, David Rintoul (Mr. Darcy from the 1970's Pride and Prejudice), David Burke (the first Dr. Watson from the recent series), and Samuel West (Mr. Elliot in Persuasion, Leonard Bast in Howard's End, and Major Edrington in Horatio Hornblower).

We'd then have about an hour for dinner, and then it'd be off to the theatre. In the order of plays we saw:

A. Passion Play - What happens when you mix confused adultery with an even worse grip on Christianity? Pretty good directing, if a little bit too much motion. Nice use of post-modernistic techniques, such as having a double actor play a character's subconscious. However, they all seemed to miss the point of the play, which was pretty Christian all told, and the end result was a sort of "No Exit" feel. Three actors came to speak to us.

B. Richard II - What happens when you put Ralph Feinnes in an ill-cast roll with an ill-cast cast a horridly uncomfortable theatre, and an infamous pair of bright neon yellow tight pants embroidered with little blue and pink flowers and green ivy? Nothing could save this production. The seats were rotten, to begin with - half the action took place in the exact spot we couldn't see anything. The director was clunky and had about three great ideas which I could pick out, since the actors all executed them with, "Now I am going to turn down this chair that my dead uncle was just sitting in while berating me to prove that I really am going to take over Gaunt's lands thus preciptating the rest of the play and THIS IS IMPORTANT...because my director told me to...and I hope it doesn't fall on my foot this time...." Other than those three bit movements, people stood still and shouted at one another. David Burke was in this, playing a very not gaunt John of Gaunt, who had been instructed to thunder around the stage and preform his death speech in an unintelligable bawl. Emilia Fox (who played Georgiana Darcy in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice) was put in a look-alike Rapunzel wig which caused her to be hunched over, while she attempted to scream to prove that she really was emoting. She clutched her dress a lot, too - presumably to not trip over it. Everyone was dressed in black, making it impossible to discern who was on whose side for this story about a civil war. Only Ralph Feinnes and Emilia Fox were in white - since they were royalty - except for the aformentioned YELLOW embroidered pants which RF donned. In fact, those pants were so extraordinary, I can only think that the costumer, upon seeing a run-through of the play, came up with these at the last minute - perhaps from a Salvation Army - just so that the audience wouldn't fall asleep but would spend the time looking at his pants and going "those are YELLOW! They're not just yellow, they're really yellow. Neon yellow. Well, not quite that green yellow - but not gold. Hmmm, gold neon. Only not that rich. A little bit more sallow and irritating. And didn't I see that embroidery pattern on an Austrian dirndle?" In its defense, the actress playing the Duchess of York who pleas in *rhyming couplets* for her son's life was STUNNING. For the ten minutes she was on the stage, I actually forgot that my knees were begging for relief, as was my back, and my poor smoke-stung eyes.... Also, the set was pretty cool - since they stripped the whole thing and then knocked a lightning bolt through the brick back wall, and then laid down SOD on the floor. Kewl.

C. Hamlet - What happens when, at the Globe, you decide not to care one whit if this DOES happen to be the best play ever written? An interesting experience. The Globe was just NEAT to be at, and we had good seats, and there really were people who stood the whole time as groundlings, and they did a pretty good job with the production, except that Hamlet was a bit TOO comical (although really funny!) - or rather, not tragic EVER. But the most interesting thing was that the guy playing Hamlet absolutely did not care that this was a role of a lifetime. He came out and started rattling off "To be or not to be" and it was a good three lines into it before anyone realised that this was the "To be or not to be" speech. There was no great intaking of breath from audience and actors before reciting their "moving" rendition of the siloloquy. Rather refreshing, I thought.

D. Orpheus Descending - What happens when Helen Mirren and a bunch of other Englishmen try to do a play set in the deep south of the good old US of A? The answer: FWAH. This cast managed not only to nail down the accent, but the behaviourisms as well! The directing was subtle, natural, and strong all at once. Non-intrusive. The lighting likewise. The set was very simple - rather Anathanish, for those who know - yet extremely effective. Everyone was well-cast - so well, in fact that everything managed to override the silly things that Tennessee Williams had put in. And the lead male - SNERK! Hmmmmm - velly velly nice. Anywho....

E. Coriolanus - What happens when Ralph Feinnes and co. find a play that actually suits them? It works! Better seats didn't hurt either, though. But no, playing strong anti-hero fits RF much better than wimpy deposee. And those GREATCOATS! Direction was much better, the cast as a whole seemed to like the play much more, and I could actually understand what people were saying. A definite improvement!

We had a few more days in London without anything to see at night, and so I took one night off, and then went to see 'A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Regent's Park with Lau - which play was pretty good, although underacted and overdirected. Lau and I also saw Fanny Burney's "A Busy Day" which was a cute script, although the sets were a horror to see (think an entire wall of sponged red facing an entire wall of sponged green).

Somewhere in there we had the millenium party where a bunch of actors/directors came to our hotel and got free drinks. The idea, of course, was that we should mingle with them, but most of us ended up sticking around each other. A few more adventurous souls actually went out and positioned themselves in places to talk, but it took a feisty older lady to push me into a group of actors (I'd been more shy since I'd gone up to Gemma Jones [Mrs Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility] and had my stupid fan moment), and introduce me, saying, "She's in the Shakespeare School" at which point two actors turned to me and said, "You ARE!?!?! What are Viv and Bernie like? What do you do in class?" Turned out they were going to be working under Viv and Bernie after they were done with us, and more, that they were practicing "As You Like It" which was the scene I had for the Sh. Sch. Praise God! On Sunday I went to St. Ethelreda's for a LATIN MASS! Oh, lovely!

The nights we didn't have a play to watch - even some nights we did - we went over to the bar in the other hotel and hung out with the "old timers" who'd come umpteen million times and liked to bestow stories about this or that performance upon our eager ears (the "Anthony and Cleopatra" in a mud pit seemed to be an especial favourite to discuss).

So much for London. Two weeks and a bit down and it was time to go to Stratford-upon-Avon. We took the early bus - thank heavens - which actually got to the town on time. Although we nearly missed the bus in oversleeping! Beautiful countryside - I listened to "Emma" the whole way down! And Stratford itself is just...*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*...wonderful. Small. Intimate. Slower-paced. Manageable. Since we were there early, we had lunch at a local pub, and then split up to wander about the hamlet. I found the Chruch where Sh. is buried and paid my 50 pence and respects, after which I promptly descended upon the gift shop. It's a strollable town. Just enough ups and downs to make it interesting. A free garden behind Sh.'s birthplace to zip into when you need a time out. A garden within our hotel. A tudor-style Pizza Hut! And, on the weekends, authentic tourists, including, for some bizarre reason, German motorcyclists. (Don't ask me.)

Life settled into the same routine as before. Class in the morning (getting much more intense as we only had a week until performance! I was finally starting to understand that "not dropping the final word" thing after this long!), lunch, class in the afternoon, dinner, play.

A. So, here we were, right in the lap of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and, lucky us, the very first thing we got to see was Richard II with...SAM WEST! (AHHCBG! HOTSE! POMF!) You can read all about this particular escapade in several places: here, here, here, and here, (these are pretty informative about the play itself, but do include a LOT of Sam-gushing, so be warned!), Lauryl's take on the two Richard II's on her page, (much more informative), as well as her informative "England Journals" (with picures!) here. My gushing has also been archived nicely over at the The Scriptorium of Sam. Suffice to say with so many people discussing the play, I can easily say that it was INCREDIBLE. Director me gushed. Actor me gushed. Me gushed. Gush gush.

B. Which brings us to The Rivals, in full 18th century wigs and panniers. Pretty good, although the men were definitely better than the girls. Typical comedy of errors. However, we got to see Benjamin Withrow (Mr Bennet in 1995 Pride and Prejudice!) - who was just AMAZING.

C. Henry IV parts one AND two - back to back history. Yikes. Tiring day although it was a pretty good show. I kept thinking of my guy friends at Steubie who would have been DROOLING over the chain armor and nicely nicked swords the actors had. Hal was great, Falstaff was great, Henry IV was great, Henry's first son played by a guy who'd been in RII was velly nice, Hotspur should have been hit with a frying pan, the lady playing his wife was SUPURB and didn't deserve to be playing against a ridiculous actor.

D. As You Like It. Ugh. Painful. Painful. PAINful! And not just because I happened to be channelling Rosalind for our own little play we were preparing for. The gal playing "my" part had something similar to perpetual laryngitis and could barely be heard. The director opted for the low-class physical humour, which almost every time managed to completely contradict what the actors were saying. THEN - this was the killer - they'd put in these MUSICAL numbers that were PURPOSELY OFF-KEY and sung from a guy that had been pulled off the tour of Rent. There was one scene that had this guy with horns on his head doing strange ballet in an orange light while Celia (played by the awesome chick from Henry IV) stood there in her nightgown and looked as though she wanted to fly away to Neverland. There was actually one part - towards the end - when I literally put my hands out and mouthed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" as a scrim covered in HUGE orange and pink and yellow 70's flowers DECENDED in the middle of the actors who were trying to have some sort of hoe-down! Several of the people who were repeats to the Theatre in England program just up and left far before that point!

E. A Comedy of Errors. HA! I couldn't stand the Menachmi, or the Roman play based OFF that, or Sh.'s version of that (which is the Comedy of Errors), when I read them - but hoooooooo boy was this a good production. Picture Casablanca meets Shakespeare at his farciest. A few weird scenes that we'll esponge from our memory, but one unforgettable chase scene across the stage where on every pass they picked up one more character until the whole cast was involved, at which point a KNIGHT from Henry IV (which was playing at the next stage over) came lumbering on, stopped, looked at us, shrugged, and kept running; next pass picked up a camel that waved as it went by, and then on comes Falstaff and his little page boy who's wearing a towel. At the last second before they all are hidden by the side set again, Falstaff turns around and grabs the towel, leaving the page to streak the last two steps, and all of us to go, "ACK! HAHAHHAHAHHAHAH!" - which just shows to goya that the Europeans can do nudes better than Americans. Super super super.

F. Romeo and Juliet - what happens when you mix Star Trek with X-Files with laryngitis woman scratching, "Rhooo-meeeho, Rhooo-meeeho *hack* - whrfrhout *ssssssssngh* th'Rhoooooooooooooo-meeeeeee*chough chouch wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze*HO?" Painful. Utterly and completely painful. And the most NORMAL part of this entire thing was when they resurrected Tybalt and Paris to play the Apocathery! Nnngh nnngh.

But to make up for this, in there Lau and I waited in line and saw...RICHARD II again!

And then somewhere in there we had the performance for our little "Shakespeare ON Love." It went really well, I thought, even though I flubbed two of my lines - managed to pick them up again, but I HORRID about it until another of our group actually called for a LINE! (God bless you, Chris!) And I will admit that it was a really neat sensation to play someone other than the "friend," the "fool," or the "disapproving authority figure." It was really cool to play the romantic lead - and such a ROLE! I fell in love with As You Like It. I fell in love with Rosalind. I read myself to sleep each night with it! And the scene we did! When she first confronts Orlando dressed as a "saucy lackey" (read: boy - yes, ladies, I played a quasi-boy again. However, this time, I didn't use any ace bandages. A hat was enough to symbolise the change) - and says she'll cure his love if he'll come and woo her. Oh! Such WONDERFUL lines! And the part when he asks her to say what the marks of a man in love are. It ran something like this:

(Me - pondering, looking at him) A lean cheek which...(look) you have not. A blue eye and sunken which (resting my arms on his shoulders and standing tip-toe to look) you have not. : ) (Leaning back a little - arms still draped about his neck) An unQUEStionable spirit which *you* have not! A beard...neglected.... (Oh, wish I could do this one for you guys. So my hands are about his neck, right - as close as I can get to throwing myself at him without making him run away from me since I AM supposed to be pretending to be a boy so I can even get this close to him at all! Anyway, so I touch his cheeks and then let my fingers drift down to his clavacles [well tempered clavacles? ; P], resting over the Adam's apple, &c., and across his shoulders, almost half murmuring by this point) ...which you...have...not.... (Siiiiiiiiilence. I'm just sort of in this pheremone opium la la land touching...HIM...Orlando...naaaaaaaaaarf.... And then...OH SHOOT! I'm pretending to be a boy...urgh...breathe!!!...um...manly voice, yeah manly voice, that's it!) *snort snarf snugger* But I pardon you for that for merely your having in beard IS a younger brother's revenue (swing legs apart - boys keep their legs apart, don't they? Don't look at him, don't look...oh, well if you MUST...just keep it LIGHT, girl!).

And so on and so forth.

It was really interesting to me to see how the directors (Viv and Bern) were able to really get us to evoke the action of the scene with so little - directing, line study, acting study, etc. Stanislavski went out the window, a bit. Made me appreciate the bard so much more.

Anyway, we had one more opportunity to play Sh., this time at Broughton Castle, and up with Lord Say, playing his ancestor in Henry VI, Part II. I was Dick the Butcher, which ended up being a larger role than I'd known. Fun. Bumbling since we'd had one run-through, but fun! The castle was really nice, too. Lots of sheep.

The morning after R&J we were kicked out of our hotel and summarily dismissed from England. A strange feeling, indeed. Made no better by the fact that it was raining and I couldn't find my umbrella. Becky, Lauryl and I all went out for high tea, which was nice, and then to the bus stop where we stood huddled under tudor buildings with our soggy luggage and nudged one another and said, "Hey, wasn't that Sam West in the grey sweat jacket?" and looked longingly down the street for our bus. Bus came, we galumphed on, and headed off for good old soggy Bath where, thanks to Beck's adventurous spirit, we eventually hailed a cab to get us up to our hostel (we seemed to be able to pin the ones which were on steep hills). The next day we toured Bath, saw the Jane Austen center, and went home. The next day we toured Stonehenge, climbed the henge at Avebury, and went home. The day after we ate at the Pump Room, and went home. We also saw X-Men.

Then, thoroughly tired of England, we hopped a bus for London, and managed to look pathetic enough that they changed my ticket to that day (Tues.) rather than the next. YAAAAAAAAY! And Mumsy was willing to pick me up a day early! YAAAAAAAAAAY! And THEN - oh boy - on THURSDAY I began teaching.

I hope all is going well with all of you! May God bless you and keep you ever in His Sacred Heart!

Emily

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Updated 18 February, 2001
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