On Spectacular Theatre

A few years ago I attended the dress rehearsal of a production of The King and I at the Royal Albert Hall in London. For the most part, it was pleasant, although not being a regular musical theatre goer, I found the echoey effect of the miking on the voices to be distracting. Something else bothered me the whole time, and I couldn’t quite figure it out until late in the performance.

I read somewhere that 3 million pounds ($6 million USD at the time) had gone into the production. Aside from the stars of television and the West End stage who played the King and Anna, and the designers and director, who I know are all paid lavishly compared to performers, I assume the actors, musicians, and techs weren’t paid more than equity wage. It seemed a great portion of the expense went into the set and occasional special effects, which included real fireworks, flaming and fizzing against the vaulted ceiling. To fill the vast Hall (whose rent alone must be staggering) the in-the-round set comprised a convincingly dingy dock and suitably ornate, huge gilt chunks of palace espaliered with silk draping, but the star of the show—the thing most chatted about in the buzzy run-up to opening, was the submerged stage. The entire set perched on beams arising out of real-life, actually-wet, splashable H2O. I couldn’t tell why I resented this, I felt, solecistic bit of reality glistening in the house of make-believe. As soon as I entered the theatre, or arena, more like, before I could swoon over the spectacularity of it all, I had to wonder to myself, “How much must it cost to safely flood the Albert Hall?” But there was something else, unrelated to the display of extravagance which, as an echt poverty thespian I had been taught to disdain, that gnawed at me. It wasn’t even that throughout the whole performance that water was never actually used for anything—not a single pointy Thai model boat made its way through the model canals—thus emphasizing that it was basically a very costly bit of scenery intended to make us go “ooh” and not much else.

No, at one point, Princess Tuptim sat on the dock waiting for her lover, feet over the edge. Her feet didn’t quite reach the water, but she simulated tapping its surface with her toe, in that way that girls do while sitting on docks waiting for their lovers. I realized then why I disliked the set. That actress, tapping the surface of an imaginary pool of water with her toe, was all we needed to know that water was indeed there, to see her watching her reflection corrugate along its ripples, even to hear it lapping. Most theatres have to rely on that alone—the talent of the actor, that is--to make the fake paint-and-plywood world come alive. And part of the thrill of theatre is witnessing that, of recognizing an entire atmosphere from a wave of a hand, or tap of the toe. And in filling the stage with water, making it all so literal, the designers did our imaginative work for us, and robbed us of the thrill of recognition. I emphasize “recognition” because I think that that, as much as any of the beautiful language, music, or profound themes to be found in drama, is what moves us when we see a piece of theatre. What would War Horse have been with real horses? A very nice play about a boy who loves his horse so goshdarn much, through which we’d all have sat waiting for the inevitable equine hard-on or dropped turd. But with the virtuosic level of fakery of the actors manipulating their skeletal puppets to appear to walk, swing their manes, even breathe like horses, we were able to experience the thrill of recognition. That exact way a colt stumbles a bit while trying to stand on its knobby legs, or that special horsey way that horses sneeze, or that bewildered struggle of a horse not made for weight-bearing, dragging a load uphill, all hoofs and ankles digging into the soil—however beautiful it may be in nature, the artful representation reverberates differently in our souls, points our memory to some platonic form of horseyness (er, Equus?) that the “real thing” allows us to ignore. It may be because I’m not particularly an animal-lover, but I found that bit of fakery more affecting than, well, any actual horse has ever been for me. And judging by the wet faces surrounding me at the National that night, I think other people felt the same.



But back to Siam: fittingly, in the same performance, the famous subversive ballet reinforced my point. Without getting into the story too much, I’ll say it ended with the dancers simulating a mass drowning by unfurling a huge swathe of blue silk over their heads to totally cover them, and at the climax, thrusting their hands through hidden holes in the silk, an instantly-recognizable symbol. It didn’t take money or complicated engineering to create, just cleverness and imagination (not to diminute the cleverness and imagination that goes into engineering, but considering how many great shows have been put on in crumbling, sub-code earthquake deathtraps, it is perhaps not the “stuff” of great theatre, unless you’re seeing a show here). The audible, and audibly delighted, gasp in the auditorium at that moment, was, I think, a greater triumph than all of the hype about the flooded stage.

And finally, for all the extravagance of the production, the most affecting moment, and one that incited the audience of thousands to clap along, was “Shall We Dance?”—the exuberant polka that prim Anna teaches the King to dance to. Three million pounds spent on a production and the thing that gets people out of their seats is watching a couple of laughing, panting middle-aged actors gallop around the stage. It was a beautiful, joyful moment, and one in which the only sign that more money than normal was spent was her INSANE DRESS, to which photos do no justice. It was also a moment that did not invite unfavorable comparisons to Yul Brynner (except inasmuch as any comparison to His Bald Majesty in any context must be unfavorable). There’s a famously sexy moment from the movie in which the king insists on dancing as the Europeans do, “not holding two hands”—when Brynner, a masterful physical actor, extends his hand as if it were something else, and fuses it to the corseted waist of the appropriately half-beswooned Deborah Kerr. Daniel Dae Kim seemed to grab Anna’s waist out of pure enthusiasm for the dance itself and his surprise at the suddenly intimate contact, and at Maria Friedman’s visible frisson, made them both for a moment seem like teenagers, and like equals. It had a freshness that can only come from two people standing on a stage, any stage, and allowing themselves to experience something real.

I saw a performance about a year ago at NYU’s summer lab, a workshop for students and alumni of the graduate theatre programs. Everything was as minimal as could be but the talent. It was basically a beautifully written play, acted brilliantly, some of which was due to the talent and skill of the actors and some of course to the director guiding them to make each scene and its place in the story, clear. That was all. Everything else either didn’t exist or had substitutions that were chosen without any attempt at convincing replication at all. Whiskey glasses were jam jars filled with water. Shovels and shoveling were mimed. Bones and skulls were planks of wood and balls of rubber bands. Murders happened with no rupturing of cleverly concealed packets of fake blood. Sound effects were narrated by the stagehand. There was no set, just a stage painted black and a table. It was one of the best, most moving plays I’ve ever seen, and a premier example of how poverty theatre, done well in the aspects that matter (writing, directing, acting), makes a fool of spectacular theatre. I dare any proponent of the hogwash idea that great theatre requires expenditure of fortunes--and that people go to the theatre for the razzle-dazzle, or that cynical, intellectually and creatively lazy cliché, “to escape”—to see something like that and suggest it would have been a more moving experience for the audience if the actors had used real-looking bones and real shovels and real dirt and real fake blood and monstrous set pieces and marvels of engineering and Spielburgian special effects. People who see theatre like this show I saw in the grungy pit at NYU go to the theatre regularly, because it gives them something more substantial than razzle-dazzle (and doesn’t cost $125 a ticket. I’m talking to you, Broadway). People who go to the theatre for spectacle go once a year, because that’s all they need to get their fix of what essentially can only nourish a part of them that doesn’t ask for much beyond the cheap thrill of expensive pageantry. People go to the theatre to be moved in one way or another, and if the only way you are able to move them is with grandiose money-flinging and a literal-minded slavery to realism, you are doing something wrong, and should not be surprised that most people would rather stay at home and watch television.

Unfortunately the production at the Royal Albert Hall was not videorecorded; I would love to include a clip of my favorite moment, although perhaps some of the magic of the live performance would be lost in conversion. So I’m including a clip from the movie. Swoon.

Sometimes London is Funny

This is what I did last night. I didn't play; I just shouted along with the players. I didn't realize there were so many people who knew how to play the ukelele. And that they all get together every wednesday night for a play-and-sing-along. London really surprises me sometimes. More surprising, however, was how many couples were making out. I didn't manage to videotape them (I definitely would have if I had been able to get a good shot--privacy be damned!). But.....so is ukelele music some big untapped aphrodesiac or something?

If Schlock Shops were Bedbugs.....

I’m beginning to worry about an unpleasant infestation occurring in my neighborhood of Kilburn. Every couple of weeks a grocery store or hardware shop closes and is replaced by a haphazard set-up shilling “leather” handbags for under a fiver or clothes your mother wouldn’t let you wear for two pounds. These shops comprise long stretches of the high road, rendered useless to residents who aren’t in the market for goods that fall apart if you breathe too hard on them. Of course the uncomfortable underlying knowledge is that it is unlikely that the companies employing people to make products that you can buy with the loose change from the bottom of your purse employ practices which would land them in Fortune Magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” list. But disregarding the murky social politics of it all, how much tat do Northwest Londoners need?

Kilburn High road has long hosted all sorts of bargain shopping, from Traid, my favorite fair-trade-supporting charity shop, to vast and varied pound shops that actually sell stuff for a pound. It’s heaven when you’re broke and you need bulk paracetemol, no-name drain cleaner, cheap Toblerone, or a sari painted with glitter glue. It’s also always had a lot of stores selling, well, crap. Blouses with cut-out bellies, plastic shoes, and of course the ubiquitous handbags, both knock-offs and ones that could only dream of knocking-off. But the number of this sort of shop has risen alarmingly in the past year.

It started with the closure of my local Sommerfield’s. This upset me, even though Sommerfield’s is the poor man’s Sainsbury’s (that is to say, poor indeed) mainly because it stocks black cherry-flavored Amore yoghurt, which Sainsbury’s does not, despite my pleas. But it was also odd to see a store in no danger of collapse close a branch in such a busy area. Unsurprisingly, residents of that postcode, of whom I am one, shortly after received notice that several buildings on that block with the Sommerfield’s store would in the coming year be gutted, renovated, and built up to include two additional stories of luxury condos. Sommerfield’s had simply shut up and moved out early. Within a week the large store housed the new “Amazon Discount Clothing,” with bargain racks pushed out onto the sidewalk and signs in the window reading, “Closing Down: Everything Must Go!” from the day it opened. A few months after, the other shops in that block of buildings, which include an army surplus store, a home and houseware emporium, a Muslim-friendly clothing boutique, and a suitcase shop, had all posted their closing down signs. Some businesses have just vanished, and in their places, having arrived as swiftly as the previous occupants had left, are the new bag-and-shoe shacks. It’s not only on that block of the high road where the luxury condos wait to be built and, no doubt, snapped right up in this fertile economy. Across the road, Soho Books has closed. Hand bags, again. Hand bags made of plastic leather, with plastic metal furnishings and plastic zippers and plastic fringe hanging off the plastic zipper grips. Hand bags that smell like car exhaust. Hand bags that melt if you leave them in the sun.

What the hell are Londoners carrying around that we need this extraordinary supply of cheap sacks to carry it in? And why are they all in Kilburn?? I have to bring my own tote to the grocery store now that the big chains are too eco-friendlier-than-thou to hand out plastic bags to customers. Where’s the outrage against the plastic tat industry? And how is it that wherever you open a Starbuck’s, all the other coffeeshops within a mile-radius wither and die, but somehow the presence of a giant Primark on the high road isn’t any threat to the cluster of equally low-end mini-marts sprouting up like mushrooms in its shadow? Is there a level of “tacky” where the rules of supply-and-demand just don’t apply anymore? Huge banks are collapsing and entire economies teetering toward abjection. Are the schlock shops the cockroaches of the retail world? Vile, but hardy enough to survive the economic winter in which creatures of better mettle perish?

My Kilburn Apartment

When I first moved to London and was looking for a room to rent, I didn’t take any of the precautions I now know to be necessary. I didn’t check the mattresses and furniture for bedbugs, I didn’t visit the neighborhood after dark to gauge its safety, I didn’t check my landlord’s record with the council to see if there were any lawsuits. I avoided the disasters to which I had left myself vulnerable only by luck.

The room I chose is in a pre-Dickensian tenement in the old Irish neighborhood of Kilburn. When I moved in there were two other people living in the flat, a pensioner from Liverpool named Ken, and a Philippino cleaning lady named Irma; one other room was empty. Ken told me that Irma used to have a another friend living in her room and that my room and the empty room downstairs each had two people living in them, all Philipino immigrants, bringing the tenant number of the four-bedroom flat to seven, but that that arrangement had recently been outlawed by the council for some reason having to do with taxation. Before he had arrived a few months before, his room had been occupied by a German woman named Lolita, who apparently still came around once in a while to steal silverware or other amenities that she claimed to have originally purchased for the house. It all seemed part of the exciting new world of London to me.

The day after I moved in, Ken asked, in the overly-tactful tones of someone whose job it is to tell you a loved one is dead, that I not put my tampons in the bathroom bin.

“But….where, then?” (blushing horribly)

“Well, the Philipinos used to do all that stuff in their rooms and then take them out in little baggies to the dumpster when they went to work in the mornings.”

“What?? No, I can’t do that—why do you know this??”

“I mean it’s unsanitary to have them just lying in the bin like that; it’s biological material and it decays and stinks and attracts flies.” His anxiety surprised me; it's not as if I flung them naked over my shoulder and watched them slide down the wall; I usually wasted half a roll of toilet paper wrapping them up like small mummies and stacked them neatly at the bottom of the can.

“I’ve never had a fly problem. I really don’t like talk—“

“I mean if you won’t keep it in your room, at least the bin in the kitchen has a lid so the flies won’t get at it.”

“I’m not walking my tampons to the kitchen.”

Actually, Lolita had recently stolen the lidded bin from the kitchen and ever since then we’ve thrown our garbage in an orange plastic grocery bag from Sainsbury’s which sits atop the kitchen table. Even had I been willing to make the journey with fistfuls of balled-up tissues from the bathroom to the kitchen every time I required a change, I figured that adding menstrual detritus to the used teabags and banana peels staring Ken in the face while he takes his tea would just aggravate his unease, so I bought a small bin with a flip lid for the bathroom. For the first few months I’d leave the bin empty and only line it with a grocery bag when I needed to use it, but I found that if Ken saw the orange handles peeking out from under the lid for more than five days in a row, he’d lecture me again about flies and decay. So now I replace the liner with another at the end of my period and leave it there for the rest of the month so he can’t tell when my periods are or how negligent I’m being without flipping open the lid and risking a faceful of rot and stench. Sometimes, tired of his policing, I consider collecting nine or ten of my used tampons and hanging them like windchimes over his door, but this fantasy usually only preoccupies me in those vengeful and intemperate days leading up to my periods; when the time is ripe for gathering, my moods have softened and I’m more concerned with finding burgers and chocolate.

Ken told his life story to me in fragments; when we get along, he often comes into the kitchen while I’m eating dinner and picks up at whatever chapter he left off, or repeats one he had told me before if it is sticking in his memory. He worked as some significant sort of bureaucrat in Whitehall all his life until offered a deceptively attractive early retirement package, which he accepted and has regretted ever since. Now he is past reemployment age, bored with the idleness to which he consigned himself, unable to enjoy much of a social life on his paltry stipend, and spends many hours a day sitting on the couch in the living room staring at the wall. Eventually he bought a TV license and took his old Panasonic out of storage and now watches sports and American movies from breakfast until he goes to bed at one thirty in the morning. He was married once, just after his retirement, to a Colombian woman named Bibiana who he claims comes from one of that country’s notorious drug cartel families and who finally wiped him out and ruined his credit: after giving up his lucrative job, he lost in his divorce from Bebe his house in Greenwich, his life savings, including his severance package from Whitehall, and most of his possessions. Every once in a while Bibiana calls up, asking for “Meester Ken” and Ken disappears with the phone into his room, and emerges two hours later, white-faced and shaking.

More naturally fussy than I am about housekeeping, Ken usually takes the dishes left after washing to dry by the sink, towel-dries them, and returns them to their cupboards. I consider life to be too short to be spent in pointlessly fastidious tasks like wiping down cereal bowls and polishing spoons, and have always been content to live out of the dish rack, so to speak. It saves the trouble of having to both open and close the cupboard door, and eliminates the threat of leaving it open and bumping one’s head against it while lost in concentration over the stir-fry. Also, I’ve probably seen too many movies, maybe watched too much X-Files, but there’s always in my mind a small but specific dread of opening the cupboard door and finding something hideous and unnatural sitting on the shelf next to the coffemugs—a severed foot, perhaps, or the chupacabra. Unlikely, I’ll admit, but better safe than sorry. When Ken and I are on the outs, he continues his meticulous attention to his own and the other housemates’ utensils and porcelainware but leaves mine on the rack. In our relatively peaceful household, this passes as “fightin’ words.” So in retaliation I put my goods in the cupboard and use his stuff instead. I replace my usual low-maintenance snacks of avocado and yogurt with more complicated meals requiring pots and large spoons and multiple plates, even a colander if I can find a use for it. After I wash them, I then leave all of them dripping and preferably still sudsy on the rack, forcing him to either fume silently as his own kitchenware air-dries, or to once again clean up after me like the harried hausfrau he failed to recognize is his true vocation. An advantage of this method is that unlike me, Ken did not buy his silverware at the 99p shop, and it’s refreshing to use knives that don’t bend when I try to cut cheese with them, and forks which don’t break off at the head and get lost in my spaghetti. Likewise, once we’ve made up, in a gesture symbolic of our renewed amity, Ken will take whatever I just washed, lovingly wipe it down so that it shines dry and pristine, and carefully return it to the cupboard.

Ken and I have been the only constant tenants of our apartment for these two years. Irma had an obese boyfriend who would break the tiles on the bathroom floor when he stepped out of the shower, and when we complained, she moved out. Then we got an American girl from Texas who was studying for a year at London School of Economics. She drank a lot and would introduce disgusting or otherwise objectionable topics when we were all eating in the kitchen, particularly if Ken was there. I remember an awkward dinner one night when she opened the discussion by asking Ken if she could borrow his razor to shave her nether bits before her date later that night. She would often attempt to provoke him in this way; I think she believed herself something of a brazen Yankee firecracker amidst the stodgy old-world Brits who just didn’t know what to make of someone so honest and uninhibited. Ken never responded with the level of aghastment I think she was seeking, but he did develop a keen and unyielding animosity towards her with which he bullied her into leaving after only two months. For a while we had a Japanese girl who was here on a workstudy program in PR and a Colombian woman who worked for a fishmonger in St. John’s Wood; we liked her even though she spoke no English because she would often bring us free fish, and even better, cook it for us with pilaf, but she left to move in with her boyfriend, also a fishmonger. Then we had two Japanese girls named Yoko. Downstairs Yoko still lives with us, but Upstairs Yoko moved out after a horrifying murder took place in our building.

I left the house one morning to find our street cordoned off and a policeman with a clipboard asking me for my name, my exact address, where was I going now, when did I plan on coming back and would I be available for questioning then? He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but I found out on the news later on that a headless body had been found in the recycling cage in front of our house. When I came home that night the street was still roped off, I had to sign in again, and a large tent had been set up in our courtyard, with security guards and men in forensics suits milling about, taping black plastic over the windows and carrying boxes of things from the apartment. I caught a glance of a meat cleaver in one of them. Luckily they honed in on the man they believed committed the murder before I got home, but Ken and Upstairs Yoko had each endured three-hour interrogations that day.

It turned out that the body belonged to our neighbor on the first floor, who, it quickly surfaced, went by several names. To us he gave the name, “Kamal Kamal,” to our landlord Bilesh, “Alberto Reynondo,” and to others, some complicated Algerian name I can’t remember. He received, and still receives, mail addressed to all of his names. The man charged with the murder was our neighbor next door, who lived in the flat above the victim’s, and who was tracked down in Leeds two days later. He admitted to having dumped the head in a canal in nearby Little Venice.

It was all a very dismal business, and the Yokos were quite shaken by it, particularly as the murderer had chatted each of them up on different occasions. I felt that the least our landlord could do, considering it all, was to lower our rent, but when our contracts were up he instead raised it for each of our rooms by five pounds a week. Two months after the murder, the police returned control of the two empty one-bedroom apartments next door to Bilesh, who then rented both of them at two hundred forty pounds a week each to the family of Somalians who had been living in our basement for the past year. We were shocked Bilesh had the cheek to demand the market price, and the highest end of the market price at that, for these apartments which, even without considering what had taken place in them, were pretty shabby—ill-heated, no fire escape. We were even more shocked that the Somalians, who knew what had happened there, were willing to pay such a sum for them, but the council is paying their rent and they don’t seem to mind the ghosts. I suspect they’ve seen worse in their lifetimes.

Upstairs Yoko decided to move somewhere she believed more peaceful, although I doubt there’s anywhere in this ancient city that didn’t see, somewhere in its history, a similarly bloody episode. I considered moving at the time, but it somehow seemed an overreaction. Ken’s fussiness, a daily bother, is a much more powerful incentive to leave, as are Bilesh’s relentless increases on the rent every six months. And yet Kilburn is a pretty great neighborhood to live in, and I have a lot of closet space, and an extra bed in my room for when my mom visits me. Ken does make nice mashed potatoes for us once in a while. I guess it all makes for a good story.

To Whom it May Concern,

I am issuing a public plea, an appeal, if you will, to the hearts of my readers as a last humble effort to obtain the support I need to follow my dreams.

Sometimes I get a sneaking suspicion that acting is not a highly respected vocation. In fact, if my findings from my grant search are any indication, the world is actually more interested in finding a cure for cancer and promoting peace in the middle east than it is in cultivating the next generation of Shakespearean actors. Did you know that the Peace Corps has no theatrical division? And that you can’t get a deadline extension on the Fulbright?

When “philanthropists” like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates ignore my queries and Tony Hopkins won’t return my calls, I feel so hurt and confused by the lack of generosity in this world, I ask myself, “Where is the Love?”

Fifty thousand dollars seems so little to ask. What is it, a shiny new car? A downpayment on a house? Think of what you could be buying with your hard-earned money, if you stopped thinking about what the suburban middleclass bourgeois expected of you, and started thinking about what you expected of you…..

If I fail to inspire you, gentle readers, with the spirit of Giving, then for the length of my sojourn in London, I will have no choice but to eat conventionally-grown fruit, wash my face with tap water, and toil for 10-15 hours a week in some sweaty oppression inflicted by the school’s ministry of “Work!Study!” This will leave precious little time for Sloane-ing, coffeeshop blogging, or contemplation of The Beautiful. And from what I hear, the mines just don’t pay like they used to.

Imagine.

And do the right thing. Cash, personal checks, and applications for pre-nuptial divorce settlements gratefully accepted.

Sincerely, Larissa

Britblog II

So, yes, I was in London for 10 days recently, where I auditioned and was accepted at the Central School for Speech and Drama for their MA program in classical acting. Woo-Hoo! In addition to my elation at the prospect of spending the next year immersed in the classics, after my short visit in London I realized that I had to attempt a longer stay and become more familiar with this great city.

When I made plans to stay in the home of a friend of mine and his flatmate, both bachelors, I envisioned a home decorated in the style of New York’s infamous Coyote Ugly bar: abandoned bras dangling from the ceiling fans, floors sticky with spilt booze, galaxies of dust and bodyhair hovering in the corridors and smeared boxerbriefs drooping off doorknobs. However, Brian and Marcus, old college buddies, live in a charming neighborhood in southeast London named Ladywell, on this picturesque street:









And they maintain a terrifying purity in their home. I’d wake up in the early morning to shouts of “ZERO TOLERANCE!” thundering from the kitchen and stumble in (trying not to slide to my death across the dustless hardwood floors) to find one of my hosts at the foaming kitchen sink, lathering furiously while the laundry washer trembled at his side. At first I thought “zero tolerance” was a warning to whichever flatmate was duty-bound at the moment to do the cleaning by the one who was currently off the hook, a “YOU FEAR HOGAN!!”- style reprimand for an AWOL dishwasher or bathtub scrubber or floor sweeper. But it is in fact a battle cry in the style of “WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!”—a mantra by which the obligated revs himself up before a trying shift of degreasing. “ZERO TOLERANCE!” from Marcus washing dishes in the kitchen, “ZERO TOLERANCE!” from Brian scrubbing tiles in the lavvy. It was a virtual cacophony of hygiene. Not only were my prejudices about the bachelors debunked by the gleaming cleanliness or their home; I immediately felt an inner panic concerning my own slobbery in contrast. The idea of exposing my slovenliness and disgracing my country before these olympians was too humiliating and I could not rest peacefully for fear of allowing some disgusting habit of mine to surface in a moment of unawareness. What if I should accidentally leave my sneakers where somebody might smell them? Or get caught cleaning my mascara wand with my toothbrush? Or forget about all the snails I trampled on the stairs to the house and tread guts all over the living room carpet? For the entire time of my stay I obsessively picked my hair out of the drain after I showered, buried my soiled clothing in double plastic bags deep inside my suitcase, and wrapped the Q-tips I cleaned my ears with in tissue before I pushed them to the bottom of the rubbish bin. The potential for disaster was high and I had to remain vigilant. The only suggestion of squalor made by my hosts was the expanding stalagmitic array of empty liquor bottles on the kitchen floor surrounding the garbage can. And even that didn’t seem as filthy as it would in any major American city home, where each of those bottles, even those with but a drop of wine in the bottom, left overnight would by morning be stuffed with drowned roaches, drawn to their besotted doom by the pungent aroma of the pickling booze.

Anyway, the first night I was there, the night before my big audition at Central, Brian, a prominent acting teacher and director, and Marcus, owner of a talent agency, and I converged in the living room for a discussion on a life in the theatre.

Brian: “I hardly ever go to shows anymore. I’d much rather get a nice bottle of wine and watch Big Brother, any night.”

Marcus: “Or Top Gear. Top Gear’s better.”

B: “Right. Brilliant. I’ve no wish to sit in some uncomfortable middle-class chair surrounded by white people and watch a bunch of actors…acting…”

M: Well, it’s a defunct art form, isn’t it?”

B: “A dinosaur. Why go to a play if there’s a boxing match on?”

M: “I mean, if actors were pilots, and pilots were forced to wear their uniforms out, and you saw just how many bloody pilots there were, you’d say, ‘Why are we training so many bloody pilots? There are only so many planes.’ What’s your exit strategy, Larissa?”

L: (silent as I fight back tears)

B: “You definitely need an exit strategy. When you sit down with yourself and say, ‘I need to say goodbye to this’. For some guys it’s thirty-five, but for women it might need to be sooner-- shorter shelf-life, yes?”

M: “Don’t get discouraged about this; it’s just important that you have a plan for what to do with your life in case you don’t make it…more wine?”

I’d like to discuss the British colloquial use of “brilliant,” which I find to be unfailingly entertaining and funny. In America, “brilliant” suggests a high degree of virtuosity exhibited in a work of art or idea (e.g.. Meryl Streep’s brilliant performance in Sophie’s Choice), or an exceptionally talented or skillful person (e.g. the brilliant painter Picasso), or sometimes an unusually bright color (as in my brilliant pink hat). We only veer away from the literal sense of the word by applying it to decidedly negative and unbrilliant things in a blunt and obvious version of sarcasm, as in “Whose brilliant idea was it to paint the door shut?” The British, on the other hand, seem to prefer to place the word somewhere in the middle, in reference to something they regard as positive and worthy of praise, but utterly unconnected to talent or skill in the fine arts or philosophy.

“They serve up a brilliant pig’s blood pudding at Maggie’s.”

or,

Jack: “Her dress just snapped off like a broken condom.”
Algernon: “Brilliant.”

I’m convinced this usage denotes a deeply cynical streak in the British character (which after a ten-day visit I feel completely justified to diagnose). They over-rate things normally understood to be of limited value as if to spit in the face of the higher things in life. “There is no real genius left in the world; the gods are dead, but bollocks to them, we’ve got pig’s blood!” Cynical or not, though, I still laugh whenever I hear “brilliant” used this way. Oh, and “bollocks,” too, every time.

I guess the most troubling thing about London was how very poor I was there. On the first day of my trip the exchange rate was two dollars to the pound and on subsequent days it hovered around $1.80-$1.88/pound. I’m used to being a rich American abroad and having to restrain my spending habits in order to discourage gypsy thieves and also not to appear overly vulgar and ugly—the “Ugly American”! Of course this happy illusion can only be upheld in countries crippled by poverty. In London, however, I had to pause before I ordered an $8 falafel sandwich or a $7 latte. A one-day three-zone travel card was $20; student tickets to the Gielgud Theatre were $30!! Although it killed my buzz not to be able to gorge myself at the most pretentious restaurants or use the loose change at the bottom of my purse to fill my suitcase with precious national treasures, I did enjoy the unfamiliar feeling of self-pity brought on by my newfound destitution. I pretended I was in one of those movies where Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez lives a ho-hum working-class life while dreaming of the big time and then is rescued by a handsome and mysterious millionaire with grey hair, to become the jewel in the crown of the upper class while never forgetting her roots. I stood outside Harrod’s imagining the over-the-shoulder shot capturing my look of yearning reflected in the window as I gazed at the inaccessible riches within. Later on in the movie, having captured the heart of the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, I’m inside the store for the first time, perched somewhat clumsily on a dresser’s podium to show my unfamiliarity with the ways of the rich. Tailors buzz around me and Richard Gere sits enthroned in the corner, beaming at my genuineness and exuberance, nothing like those society ladies he’s used to. When my gown for the big night is finally finished, I see it in the mirror—so different from my welding outfit—and with tears in my eyes, whisper, “I’ve never felt satin like this before…”

When I wasn’t daydreaming about my rise to the top I did my best to have a good time despite my lack of funds. Luckily, the museums are mostly free, some theatres offer student tickets for as low as $15, and people can be pretty generous if you pout at them. One day I struck up a conversation with a couple at the famous Cutty Sark Pub on the Thames. The man, clearly of the working class (from what I could discern from his accent and my vast knowledge of masterpiece theatre character types), described his travels in America, “Oi just show op wit’an empty syootcase an’ boi moi clowthin’ theh, don’ even bothah packin nutin’…oi git a noice syoot or tyoo, an’ a couple pair o’jeans an’ some jackits an’ T-shuhts and tennies….oi dew that whenevah oi take vacashin in Nyoo Yoork, oi dew.” He has a job with the city of London pumping oxygen in after the sewage as it floats down the Thames. I couldn’t follow his explanation of the science of it all exactly, but apparently, fish don’t normally object to swimming through excrement, but because of the great multitudes of turds progressing down the river, and the fact that feces somehow eats up or destroys the oxygen in the water, if left unaided, the fish die of suffocation. Throughout history the Thames has been a giant floating death camp for millions of unsuspecting fish, swept along with the unrelenting tide of poo, and creating what was called the “Big Stink.” But my friend at the pub and his crew save the day by reoxygenating the river so the fish and sewage can coexist happily together. When I told him that I held a B.A. in Liberal Arts and was pursuing a graduate degree in classical acting, he took pity and treated me to a half pint of cider.

Well, that’s enough of my trip for now. I’m sure once I’m living there I’ll have more to say. I’ve included a few more pictures, one of me having high tea on Primrose Hill, one of the romantc, moody Thames, and a 'political' image taken at posh Sloane square...

Brit Blog

...a great city is a kind of labyrinth within which at every moment of the day the most hidden wishes of every human being are performed by people who devote their whole existences to doing this and nothing else. Along a road there walks a man with a desire repressed in his heart. But a few doors away there are people utterly devoted to accomplishing nothing but this desire...
When I discovered this, I was almost tempted to think that I had stripped bare my deepest wishes and found that others shared them and that even if this were a kind of hell, perhaps it was my destiny.

-Stephen Spender, World Within World

More on my London travels soon.....