I'm home!
For those of you who didn't know, I went to London from January 3rd-20th to study "Theatre & Dance as cultural metaphors." It's OK...we don't know what that means either.
So, I'm back! The trip was wonderful. I saw 17 performances!* I performed a scene from Othello as the title role on stage at the Globe Theater! I went to the Tower of London! I got to hang out with a bunch of close friends and newer friends for 2.5 weeks in another country and travel around the city with them, discussing common passions. All in all, it was tremendous, and made up for the horribly ran, waste of time pre-course over the past semester. It was so good in fact, that I could see myself living there, at least for a few years, sometime in the future. Or at the very least, going back to visit a couple times.
*List of shows in order seen (Underlined shows were part of the trip and seen with the entire group and professors):
1) Spamalot It wasn't a very good show. But it was funny and fun. Well worth seeing. Also was amusing to see the Dance instructor completely not understand the humor and think it was crap.
2) History Boys This performance blew me away. I knew it was a good play when I'd read it last year, but seeing it really made it come alive. Go see this if you get a chance.
3) Cinderella Pantomime My first Pantomime. It set the bar high, and I'm glad it did. Fun for all ages, supposedly. This version, more fun for adults than kids, I'd think.
4) Treasure Island or Parrots of the Carribean My first Fringe show. Well performed, funny, fun for all ages. Very intimate space. There were only 8-10 audience members there when I saw the show, and 4 actors. A great first experience for what my paper is on. Seen at London's oldest Fringe theatre.
5) Blood Brothers A very sad, very powerful musical. Music is rather repetitive in that almost everything seems to be a reprise of something before, but it's well done and sticks in your head. London's longest running musical.
6) Lord of the Rings A beautiful diamond encrusted pile of crap. The acting was cringe-worthy. The singing was just OK. Trying to cram 3 lengthy books into 3 hours is just not possible. On the flip side...technically this was one of the most stunning things I've ever seen. The set could rotate in either direction, at the same time, it could lift in many sections to multiple heights, and there were intertwined tree branches that spread out over the backdrop, the proscenium arch, the ceiling, and the unused box seats. There were something like 150 moving lights and 350 stationary ones. The tech rehearsals took 14 weeks. The choreography was very impressive as well for the dance and fight numbers. The budget for this show was 24 million (dollars, I think?). We found out a lot of these tidbits because we were, by random chance, sitting in front of someone who'd been part of the original lighting crew. We're not sure if he was part of the design team or what, but, it was cool all the same.
7) The Nutcracker This was a redone version, to bring the ballet to a more modern audience. It worked. There was a story the whole way through, and it was fun to watch.
8) A Modern dance piece I really didn't like this. I just thought that where they could've succeeded, they were trying too hard, and where they didn't, well...they just didn't. There was one section that was interesting, but it wasn't enough. I was disappointed. Apparently, a lot of people tend to be disappointed by modern dance for these same reasons.
9) Snow White Pantomime I have never walked out of a show before. Until we saw this. I wouldn't have walked out had I been there by myself, but I wouldn't have been there in the first place either. However, I didn't feel bad about walking out. Which means it must've been pretty terrible. The music ranged from Disney's Snow White to other Disney songs to the Imperial March from Star Wars to Ghost Busters to bad disco. It really didn't work well, and was altogether frustrating to watch.
10) Women of Troy The set was amazing for this. The acting was OK. I'm a bit disappointed that the National Theatre couldn't have found some better actresses, though.
11) Land of the Dead/Helter Skelter Another Fringe show. Full house here though. These were phenomenal. They were two 1 acts by Neil Labute. Very intimate space being that it was a Fringe theatre, very powerful scripts. I was extremely impressed. I'm considering doing Helter Skelter for Advanced Directing now instead of Variations On The Death Of Trotsky by David Ives. I'll have to see...
12) The Mousetrap The longest running play in the world. It's been running for over 55 years. Until the last 10 minutes when the script becomes trite and appears rushed and poorly written, I could understand why it'd have a long run. I won't give away the ending because, well...it is a murder mystery. It's still worth seeing, but...oy, that ending.
13) Much Ado About Nothing Another National Theatre production. Very well done. The acting was great, the set was impressive. I thought it went very well. I also read this play last year and was unimpressed. But, I found I liked it much more upon the stage. What a surprise.
14) Present Laughter More National Theatre! Noël Coward has a very distinct style, and I find it very funny. It helps to know what you're getting into when you go, though, which could explain why someone else we were with didn't like it much.
15) Swan Lake Would've been twice as good if it were half the length. Take out all the random dancing that had nothing to do with the story and let the ballet be dancers telling a story without the need for words, rather than dancers dancing with the shadowy presence of a story. The dancing itself was pretty, but the lack of attention to plot bothered me as a theatre-based viewer. Someone mentioned that it looked like a painting come to life, which I'd agree with, but...that's not enough for me.
16) Sylvia Another ballet, but I liked it much better than Swan Lake. I was more familiar with the characters (Orion, Apollo, etc), the dance portrayed the plot, and it was just over half the length of Swan Lake. It wasn't technically as impressive, I suppose, but that's not what makes a performance for me.
17) Billy Elliot Our final show of the trip. It was fun to watch the choreography. The set was both very impressive and extremely distracting. The parts that came out from under the stage and lifted up, well done. The set that went around the back and sides, that from our seats we could see backstage? That's just unprofessional. The lighting during some numbers I thought worked very well, during others I was a bit confused as to why the designer chose to do what they did. The plot drew me in more by the end of the Act 2 than it had by the end of Act 1, but, I still wish we'd seen a better show as our final performance.
Overall though, I'm quite happy with the trip and can't wait to go back!
So, I'm back! The trip was wonderful. I saw 17 performances!* I performed a scene from Othello as the title role on stage at the Globe Theater! I went to the Tower of London! I got to hang out with a bunch of close friends and newer friends for 2.5 weeks in another country and travel around the city with them, discussing common passions. All in all, it was tremendous, and made up for the horribly ran, waste of time pre-course over the past semester. It was so good in fact, that I could see myself living there, at least for a few years, sometime in the future. Or at the very least, going back to visit a couple times.
*List of shows in order seen (Underlined shows were part of the trip and seen with the entire group and professors):
1) Spamalot It wasn't a very good show. But it was funny and fun. Well worth seeing. Also was amusing to see the Dance instructor completely not understand the humor and think it was crap.
2) History Boys This performance blew me away. I knew it was a good play when I'd read it last year, but seeing it really made it come alive. Go see this if you get a chance.
3) Cinderella Pantomime My first Pantomime. It set the bar high, and I'm glad it did. Fun for all ages, supposedly. This version, more fun for adults than kids, I'd think.
4) Treasure Island or Parrots of the Carribean My first Fringe show. Well performed, funny, fun for all ages. Very intimate space. There were only 8-10 audience members there when I saw the show, and 4 actors. A great first experience for what my paper is on. Seen at London's oldest Fringe theatre.
5) Blood Brothers A very sad, very powerful musical. Music is rather repetitive in that almost everything seems to be a reprise of something before, but it's well done and sticks in your head. London's longest running musical.
6) Lord of the Rings A beautiful diamond encrusted pile of crap. The acting was cringe-worthy. The singing was just OK. Trying to cram 3 lengthy books into 3 hours is just not possible. On the flip side...technically this was one of the most stunning things I've ever seen. The set could rotate in either direction, at the same time, it could lift in many sections to multiple heights, and there were intertwined tree branches that spread out over the backdrop, the proscenium arch, the ceiling, and the unused box seats. There were something like 150 moving lights and 350 stationary ones. The tech rehearsals took 14 weeks. The choreography was very impressive as well for the dance and fight numbers. The budget for this show was 24 million (dollars, I think?). We found out a lot of these tidbits because we were, by random chance, sitting in front of someone who'd been part of the original lighting crew. We're not sure if he was part of the design team or what, but, it was cool all the same.
7) The Nutcracker This was a redone version, to bring the ballet to a more modern audience. It worked. There was a story the whole way through, and it was fun to watch.
8) A Modern dance piece I really didn't like this. I just thought that where they could've succeeded, they were trying too hard, and where they didn't, well...they just didn't. There was one section that was interesting, but it wasn't enough. I was disappointed. Apparently, a lot of people tend to be disappointed by modern dance for these same reasons.
9) Snow White Pantomime I have never walked out of a show before. Until we saw this. I wouldn't have walked out had I been there by myself, but I wouldn't have been there in the first place either. However, I didn't feel bad about walking out. Which means it must've been pretty terrible. The music ranged from Disney's Snow White to other Disney songs to the Imperial March from Star Wars to Ghost Busters to bad disco. It really didn't work well, and was altogether frustrating to watch.
10) Women of Troy The set was amazing for this. The acting was OK. I'm a bit disappointed that the National Theatre couldn't have found some better actresses, though.
11) Land of the Dead/Helter Skelter Another Fringe show. Full house here though. These were phenomenal. They were two 1 acts by Neil Labute. Very intimate space being that it was a Fringe theatre, very powerful scripts. I was extremely impressed. I'm considering doing Helter Skelter for Advanced Directing now instead of Variations On The Death Of Trotsky by David Ives. I'll have to see...
12) The Mousetrap The longest running play in the world. It's been running for over 55 years. Until the last 10 minutes when the script becomes trite and appears rushed and poorly written, I could understand why it'd have a long run. I won't give away the ending because, well...it is a murder mystery. It's still worth seeing, but...oy, that ending.
13) Much Ado About Nothing Another National Theatre production. Very well done. The acting was great, the set was impressive. I thought it went very well. I also read this play last year and was unimpressed. But, I found I liked it much more upon the stage. What a surprise.
14) Present Laughter More National Theatre! Noël Coward has a very distinct style, and I find it very funny. It helps to know what you're getting into when you go, though, which could explain why someone else we were with didn't like it much.
15) Swan Lake Would've been twice as good if it were half the length. Take out all the random dancing that had nothing to do with the story and let the ballet be dancers telling a story without the need for words, rather than dancers dancing with the shadowy presence of a story. The dancing itself was pretty, but the lack of attention to plot bothered me as a theatre-based viewer. Someone mentioned that it looked like a painting come to life, which I'd agree with, but...that's not enough for me.
16) Sylvia Another ballet, but I liked it much better than Swan Lake. I was more familiar with the characters (Orion, Apollo, etc), the dance portrayed the plot, and it was just over half the length of Swan Lake. It wasn't technically as impressive, I suppose, but that's not what makes a performance for me.
17) Billy Elliot Our final show of the trip. It was fun to watch the choreography. The set was both very impressive and extremely distracting. The parts that came out from under the stage and lifted up, well done. The set that went around the back and sides, that from our seats we could see backstage? That's just unprofessional. The lighting during some numbers I thought worked very well, during others I was a bit confused as to why the designer chose to do what they did. The plot drew me in more by the end of the Act 2 than it had by the end of Act 1, but, I still wish we'd seen a better show as our final performance.
Overall though, I'm quite happy with the trip and can't wait to go back!