Confessions of a Theatre Snob

Monday, February 26, 2007

'The walls have got thinner!'

A week after the mind mapping we met up for our first 'weigh in' as part of the effort to lose weight.

I get out of the car, I'm wearing a fairly smart skirt, and heels.
J: (looking at my outfit) 'I thought we were going walking!'
Me: 'were we?' (I had forgotten anything about this, honest)

I'm pretty horrified when I get on the scales. It's worse than bad. We decide to do our walking in town this week. There's mention of doing the 'Snickelways', only no one remembers the book, so we walk up to tourist information and see what walks they have in and around the city. We each buy a leaflet. For some reason actually buying a leaflet detailing a walk feels virtuous, and it's almost like we've done one. We start talking about where to go for lunch.

Me: 'erm, perhaps we should walk a bit before we eat?'

We decide to do a bit of the bar walls. The bit we choose is very narrow, and we ask each other just when the walls got so thin? Having walked the prettiest bit of the walls, we head for what I call 'foodie street' where there are lots of nice restaurants, and we find a new one, Harville's, which offers a good value 'express lunch'.

We're soon settled with a glass of wine, and a nice meal in front of us. I comment that I rather like the way that we exercise.

But I think losing the weight is going to take a lot of work!

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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Unconquered?

I went to see Stellar Quines production of Torben Betts The Unconquered last night. As I read the brief blurb about the play, I could tell it was going to be one of those pieces of theatre that reminded me of the plays we did at Uni*, i.e. ‘experimental’ and ‘challenging’. This can sometimes also be a euphemism for c**p – but on this occasion it wasn’t.

Unlike many of these pieces, it had a story line, not a particularly pleasant one, but a story nonetheless. It had a very effective set, part cartoon line drawings, with the framework of a house off kilter. The colours were predominantly black and white, with splashes of red. The images were striking and the language rhythmic, with many lines repeated over and over until they were stuck in your head.

I read that Stellar Quines main focus is to promote the work of Scottish women, and I’d therefore assessed them to be a feminist company, but I found this to be a profoundly anti-feminist play. The mother never rebels, and is rejected, the rebellious daughter is utterly, and fatally, subdued. It was actually quite moving at the end, but not a comfortable viewing experience. There were moments of black humour, but again the laughter was never comfortable.

Unlike Guys and Dolls, I can’t say ‘I enjoyed it’. That sort of statement is too trite for this type of play. Its there to be experienced, to be felt. In many ways it made me angry, made me want to say ‘stop’, to step in and change the characters actions, and then it made me think about it afterwards. I’m glad I saw it, I need to see more plays of this type, as it also challenges me, and my tendency to see theatre which is predictable – often because I’ve seen the play so many times before.

Finally, here's what The Stage made of it. I read it before I saw it, and have to admit the review didn't make much sense until I'd seen the play!

*We did quite a few plays that I dissuaded friends from coming to see as ‘you won’t like it’.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

You can't get autoroute for this!

I spent Saturday morning mind mapping with a couple of friends. A couple of us have done this infrequently* over the last few years, and found it quite useful, particularly if there’s a lot going on in your life, and you’re having trouble prioritising, or if you’ve come to some sort of ‘crossroads’ and don’t know where to go next. Somehow just getting it down on paper helps to clear the head – at least, I hope so – and makes you realise just how much there is going on in life, and where the pressures are coming from.

Basically you brainstorm everything that’s going on in different areas of your life – job, family, health, social, house, holidays etc, and get down on paper all the things that you need to tackle, or sometimes just a ‘wish list’ of things you want to do, and then you look at how things interlink and connect. Then you think about priorities, and targets – which I hate, as I’m really bad at deadlines – but it does make you focus.

Anyhow, my ‘map’ was pretty full, and made me realise that I do have to prioritise, and I can’t do everything at once. We’ve agreed to meet up regularly to review how things are going, the first time at Easter. In the past, I’ve been able to look back and see that I actually achieved most of the things I set out to do. I hope I’ll be able to say the same this time.


*When I say ‘infrequently’, it’s probably a couple of years since we last sat down and did this

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Friday, February 16, 2007

'I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right'

Do you ever have those days when everything is just crowding in on you and you can't see the wood for the trees, and you just want to hide under the duvet, and tell the world to go away? The last couple of days have been pretty much like that for me. I'm having to deal with things I never wanted to, and it's getting to me.

So, I did the only thing I could do to make myself feel better. I bought some new shoes at lunchtime. Yes, the gratification was temporary, but the world does look better when you have new shoes on your feet!

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Soundtracks

Following my trip to see Guys and Dolls on Friday, I decided I needed a new copy of the soundtrack. There weren’t any on sale at the theatre, as this production hasn’t been recorded.

Now, let me rewind that one for a moment. I said a ‘new’ copy, for I do have a soundtrack album, from the National Theatre production, (which was, gulp, 25 years ago), but it’s on vinyl not cd, so I did a bit of browsing at the weekend and found the same album on Amazon for £4.97 (probably cheaper than the LP was when I bought it!) and it arrived this morning.

Now I’ve just read here that the cast album for the new musical The Drowsy Chaperone is being produced on vinyl, but with a cd copy included, but the article then goes on to say that cast albums are an endangered species, as the returns on them are so low. It’s not like film, where you have a global audience, and less and less of them are being recorded. If you think about it, it tends now to be only ‘first run’ musicals that get recorded. Those that cross over from New York rarely are, though at one time it would be pretty standard to find an original London cast album. It seems a great shame that there are less of these, as they are a part of theatre history. You can never truly capture a theatre production either on film or on record, as the experience isn't fixed, and changes from performance to performance, but these recordings capture one element of a show, and should, I think, be celebrated in all their sometimes bizarre glory*.

If I think about my (vinyl) record collection, there’s an awful lot of musical theatre soundtracks in there, some, like Guys and Dolls, from productions that I never even saw, but also many from shows that I did, Me and My Girl, Chess, Joseph, Evita, Les Mis. They probably say as much about me as my ‘pop’ collection, as my theatre going was shaped by musicals from the age of 10 onwards.

*For an example of this you should try listening to the album from the RSC's Wizard of Oz - I'm not sure who ever told the woman playing Glinda she could sing, but they were wrong. Yet I'd forgotten this until I heard it again the other week

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Scenes from a drama class

We’re talking about how we’d stage the play that we’ve just read. It’s called ‘Too Much Punch for Judy’ and it’s one that we’re going to be doing some improvisations on, to link in with a student performance. It’s not surprising that I’ve never heard of it before, given that it’s a TIE play, but apparently it’s one of the most frequently performed plays. Though that does make me wonder about the teacher who has chosen it for a GCSE assessment piece for these kids, as it’s likely that the assessors will have seen it numerous times

The tutor suggests the ‘round’ as being an option, and asks if anyone has been to the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round in Scarborough. I say that I have. She then talks about a thrust stage, and says that ‘one of the best is The Swan in Stratford. Anyone been there?’ Yes, I say again. She goes on, ‘of course it’s partly based on Shakespeare’s Theatre…and then of course there’s the Globe’. She turns to look at me ‘Have you been there too?’ Yes, I reply, shuffling down a bit in my chair. But it seems a bit ridiculous to me. It’s a drama class, and yet I’m sort of apologising for the theatre that I’ve seen!

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Sunday, February 11, 2007

'If I were a bell I'd be ringing'

First things first. I found the cds - they were, as expected, in an obvious place, just buried under other 'stuff'.

Still, that's not what I'm writing about. Another week, another theatre trip, (another musical - I really have to see some straight plays soon!) This time it was the touring production of Guys and Dolls at one of my favourite theatres, the Sunderland Empire. It's a big theatre, but it doesn't feel it, though that's perhaps because we've never sat far from the front. It also has a very nice Italian restaurant that's very close, for pre theatre, and a pub next door for post theatre - what more could you want? There's also a car park that closes at midnight, as we know to our cost, but there was no chance of pushing that envelope this time.

It's years since I last saw Guys and Dolls, and that was an amateur production, but it's a show I love, with great songs and dancing and snappy dialogue, so I'd wanted to see this production as soon as I knew it was touring - yes, I'd love to have seen Ewan McGregor in the West End, but hey, sometines you have to be realistic - and I thought it was really good. We had Norman Bowman* as Sky Masterson, Louise Dearman as Sarah Brown, with Alex Ferns (he used to be in East Enders, apparently) as Nathan Detroit, and Samantha Janus as Miss Adelaide (very good, but then it is probably the best part). It was a great high energy show, with humour, and enough slushy romance for me to have a soppy grin on my face. This isn't even a review, I didn't think that deeply about it, I just enjoyed it.

*Who I thought was very good, but perhaps a little young for the part - but from a bit of 'web-browsing', I discover he's 37 - he definitely has a picture in the attic!

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Friday, February 09, 2007

So, maybe I'm not the tidiest person in the world

You know that feeling when you can't find something? It's in the house somewhere, but God only knows where. I've had that happen a couple of times recently with my OU coursework. First I couldn't find my text book. Looked all over, obvious places (not a chance of it being there of course) and less obvious. After a couple of days I found it lurking under a heap of other papers next to the sofa. Next, I have cds that I need to listen to. I know I found them when looking for the text book, and probably put them somewhere safe. But where? That's the mystery. I guess it's back to moving all the heaps of papers again, and they'll turn up - hopefully well before the deadline for my essay.

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Monday, February 05, 2007

Going back

It was the first tutorial for my Open University course on Saturday. It was at St John’s*, so it was quite bizarre going back there, and I have to admit I felt quite envious of all the posh new buildings that have sprung up in the last few years**. They’ve certainly had an injection of money from somewhere, but perhaps that’s from all the land they’ve sold.

As the group gathers in a small seminar room, I’m trying to work out who the tutor is, as one woman is asking everyone questions on what they’ve done before – it turns out she’s another student, and the tutor is out of the room.

We move on to discussing our first novel, Pride and Prejudice. The tutor starts ‘now, I know people can find the language difficult, and quite dry, did you struggle with it?’
Around the room, the majority of the group are saying that yes, they’d found it hard going and hadn’t enjoyed it. I sit back rather amazed, as P&P is certainly one of my favourite, if not my favourite, novels, and has been since long before Colin Firth dived into a lake. I pipe up ‘I love it’, I don’t add that I don’t find the language difficult at all, what I do find hard is the level of analysis that we have to subject the text to.

Terms I’ve never heard before are being bandied around, and I know I’m finding this difficult to grasp. ‘A’ Level literature was never like this. I have to write 1000 words on a particular piece of the narrative, and as usual, my head is saying I can’t do this, why am I subjecting myself to this for a qualification I don’t need? I’m not sure I actually have an answer to this other than I hate to leave things unfinished. By the end of the session, I think I understand a little more, but it’s still going to be difficult. And I have a lot to get through before we get to the Shakespeare!


*Once, the College of Ripon and York St John, then York St John’s College, and now a university in it’s own right.
** I have so many memories of never having enough space to rehearse for productions, and once having to use the old ‘Wynsors World of Shoes’ shop, still with old shoe racks, as our rehearsal space for one of the final year projects!

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

A tale of men in frocks...and Wagon Wheels

After the traumatic visit to the panto in Cardiff, I felt the need for a ‘proper’ panto, and, as I've mentioned before, there is really only one panto that I give the time of day, and that’s the one at York Theatre Royal.

Is it really that different from all the others? I know it doesn’t have anyone from Neighbours or Big Brother (thank God). Then you see a run of the mill panto, put on by one of the big panto production companies and you realise, Oh yes it is!

So Monday night, I went to see this year’s offering, Cinderella, accompanied by Corinne, who I though very brave to try another panto after the last experience, so I was a little concerned that it would live up to my high praise.

As we took our seats, Corinne commented on the small number of children in the audience, which I said was typical for this panto. From the moment Berwick entered trying to convince us that this year he would be playing Cinders, with his traditional greeting of ‘me babbies, me bairns’ we were away. And I was laughing, at the ad libbing, at David Leonard playing both the Baron and the Baroness, which demanded some very quick changes, at the animal glove puppets that sang along to the love song between the Prince and Cinders (now played by perennial principal girl, Suzy Cooper), at the ‘slosh’ scene, where buckets of water were thrown with incredible force.

There was a beautiful transformation scene, the Fairy Godmother in a fabulous red sparkly frock (oh, yes, I could see myself in that!) and a tribute to Martin Barrass’s 21st panto, which made me laugh at all the clips from pantos past.

Then one of the most important parts of the evening, the throwing (but not hard, oh no, remember Health and Safety!) of the Wagon Wheels. Oh yes, readers, I have indeed fought off small children in the past for possession of a Wagon Wheel. This year, as soon as we sat down and we at the end of a row, owing to the removal of some seats, I thought, ‘good chance here’ and indeed a broad grin at Martin as he came down the aisle, brought the desired Wagon Wheel. Which I promptly gave to Corinne, ‘I hope you feel honoured, I’ve never given one away before!’.

I guess it made me realise that there really is only one panto for me. And I get to see it all again on Saturday, for the last night. But will it be the same show – Oh no it won’t!

If anyone is interested to read more about Berwick and his approach to panto, there's an article here from a couple of years ago.

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