The Bridge Project

While in London, I was morally obliged to take in some theatre. After a bit of research as to what was available and immediately crossing off anything I’d be able to see on tour in the states (Spring Awakening or Avenue Q) or anything I believed Kander and Ebb would scoff at (Sister Act, the Musical or We Will Rock You), I settled on and convinced L to join me for The Cherry Orchard.

Some of you might know that it is very difficult for me to choose a favorite movie, but I can list favorite directors. Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road) is in the top five, and his first love is theatre. He won a Tony for his direction of the revival of Cabaret with Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming. Anyway, he’s currently directing a very special three-season project called the Bridge Project, which is an attempt to connect London and New York with a talented British and American cast and shows in both cities.

The company is doing two plays, with the same director and cast, alternating nights and occasionally doing both the same day. They are The Cherry Orchard, written by Anton Chekhov and interpreted by the witty Tom Stoppard, and The Winter’s Tale, a Shakespearean romance (?). The cast includes the brilliant British stage actor Simon Russell Beale, Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona and the Prestige), Josh Hamilton (Away We Go, Diggers, Kicking and Screaming), Richard Easton (Revolutionary Road), Sinead Cusack (Eastern Promises, V for Vendetta), and Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Gattaca, Reality Bites).

The project did a run in NYC a while back and is now in London at the Old Victoria Theatre (the Old Vic), where L and I went to see the Cherry Orchard. The performance was hilarious and so superbly acted. The plot revolves around a family who is in the process of losing everything to the combination of financial ruin and proletariat revolution. Stoppard’s interpretation emphasizes the comedy of their situation while the subtlety of the performances emphasizes confusion, fear, naïveté, and inevitability of it. Beale, Hall, and Cusack were absolutely stunning in their roles. Hawke was distracting and overwrought. I was so very pleased, and reminded how thrilling excellent theatre could be. I missed St. Louis and the days when I went to two or three plays a month.

In fact, I enjoyed the Cherry Orchard so much that I convinced a student, K, to join me for the other play in the double-bill, The Winter’s Tale. It’s not a “great work” in the scheme of all things Shakespeare, but it was so very perfectly Shakespeare in that no one could have written the same tale as wrenchingly or marvelously. It’s considered by some to be a romance, as it contains the elements of comedy and tragedy so fluidly in the same piece as to make neither category apply appropriately.

According to a review I read afterward, directors and actors have always had great difficulty interpreting this text, and the motives of King Leontes in particular, who Simon Russell Beale played with incredible ambiguity and nuance. Rebecca Hall was stunning and glorious as Queen Hermione, and Sinead Cusack was once again wonderful in this, though I felt like her talents were underused in a role that felt too small. The scenes without one of these three players felt lesser, somehow, and like filler until we were able to return to the scenes in Sicily, though of course Bill Shakes would have never written filler. Ethan Hawke was better in this play than in the Chekhov, playing the rogue in a way that lent itself to being a bit overdone more appropriately than the other role of the tutor. In fact, he was hilarious.

The staging of the Winter’s Tale was also gorgeous. The lighting was outstanding and set a terrifying and glorious mood. The transitions between scenes were very fluid and felt like a dance signifying the passage of time rather than just the movement of props. Oh. I love the theatre. For as many performances of as many kinds of plays I have seen in my life, there are only a few moments that I can recall as magical and true insights into humanity: Blue/Orange, The Last Five Years, Doubt, A Little Night Music, Porgy and Bess. I want to add both the Cherry Orchard and the Winter’s Tale to that list.

Fashionable Marketing

L lived in London for a few months while studying fashion in undergrad, so it was particularly fun to explore fashionable London with her. On Thursday we spent the afternoon in Soho, stopping in fabric and trims stores, as well as RD Franks, a fashion bookstore. Of course, we also browsed boutiques and clothing shops that were out of our price range to dream the day away. And I bought tea, for a person must drink and purchase tea in Britain, no?

On Friday we visited the Spitalfields Market, a market for handmade goods and designers with a different theme each day. Fridays are Fashion and Art. Quite a few booths were disappointingly mass-market goods, but there were quite a few booths in which you were able to speak to the artists about their work. I bought a perfectly marvelous purse handmade from lovely vintage fabric, as well as a dress and a cute top. With a willingness to wade through the mass-produced goods, there were some really nice finds. Of course, it’s not as diverse as Etsy…

Saturday morning is the time to go to the Portobello Road market, made famous in my mind by my childhood experiences with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a movie I recently rewatched and enjoyed much less than I did as a child. Unfortunately, I think we ended up on the less interesting end of the market, which mostly consisted of goods that seemed to fall off the back of a truck and fewer curiosities. By the time we arrived at the interesting end of the market, it was noon, my arches were falling, and the market was stressfully packed with people. I’d do it differently next time, but I did enjoy wandering and watching.

St. Vincent, Rockin' Out

Leaving Paris, we headed to London for the beginning of a week-long tour of Western European political institutions. I’ve always enjoyed London, but never loved it, which is okay. It makes other places better when not everything is amazing, right? A friend of mine, L, lives in Cork, Ireland, and she decided to meet me in London for the four days I was there, and I’m so grateful! She is a great travel partner, and I really had such a great time exploring with her. Having been there twice before, I had already done the touristy stuff, so I just wanted to wander, explore, and discover the city as someone might who lives there, and I left with a much better impression of London than I had previously had. Verdict: I’d be happy to live there, even with the rain, especially to trade visits with L in Cork.

I arrived with the group at St. Pancras Station, which is right next to King’s Cross Station, but whose façade was used as King’s Cross Station in the Harry Potter movies, since it is much prettier. I met L at the dorms in which we stayed and we headed to the Institute of Contemporary Art to see St. Vincent in concert. It was an intimate concert with maybe 100-150 people in the audience (correct me if I’m wrong, L), but she rocked it like there were a thousand. It was so incredible. What a great show.

She’s a really inventive artist, distorting traditional sounds to find the sounds she wants, with a really guttural feel. I’ve liked her albums a lot, but seeing her live was totally different and enthralling. Her guitars are dirty, her drums and intense, and her musicians look super nerdy but can each play at least three instruments. I’m so glad we did that. Here’s a video of one of her songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZW9NYX6JZA

and L's post on the show:

http://arguingthemobius.blogspot.com/2009/07/seeing-st-vincent-in-london.html