A Meditation

I have far too much work to do anything outside of write the silly essays and rehearse and review and the whatnot. Halloween probably won't happen after all. So, of course, I'm writing in my blog.

Here are some things I am thankful for:

- "In the Bleak Midwinter," a Christmas Carol
- Sainsbury's Brand Chocolate Chip Cookies (only 56p! And lots! And just as good as Chips Ahoy!)
- Actors that take direction
- Actors that like their work
- Actors that like sucking up
- Carl Jung and the idea of mythic structure as a whole (it will get me through my essay. Again.)
- Clouds that move too quickly
- The concept of an eclectic collection of (seemingly) useless nautical instruments
- The National Youth Theatre (an internship possibility?)
- Cookies. Again.
- Biscuits too, particularly Hobnobs.
- Ready to eat sandwiches, bought in these little triangular packages.
- Nice chavs.
- Agape and phileo love, if not love as a whole indefinable thing. I might also have included eros if there was any eros to be thankful for. (yuk yuk yuk)

So I met some real life chavs today! They were from Cornwall, which is apparently like the Texas of England, in that they have their own language and are more or less a separate cultural entity. Except Cornwall sounds pretty dangerous from the way these chavs were relating it to me. Cop cars everywhere, apparently. Also, I discovered there was more to a chav than just being a gangster without ambition, as the estute Avery Macleod asserts. Rather, chaviness has a serious economic weight. They're mildly anarchic, all the antics that gives the word "chav" a negative connotation are little forms of rebellion. They apparently idolize Eminem. If you want the definition of a chav, look at Eminem.

So forgive me while I represent for my mates from Cornwall. Word.

There is the educational existential side to this meditation though, as in "am I really learning something at Exeter?" Note, this is not the angst-ridden side of the meditation. I had that already, I am allowed one angst post per blog. And it's out of my system.

Rather, this is the honest question of am I learning anything? Certainly most of what I am learning is from experience, not classes. It's from getting out there and being in England, not sitting in a classroom. But let's examine the classroom for a moment, as that is, in a sense, what I'm paying for.

I have mixed feelings about the Drama department here. On the one hand, they are, for the most part, not the Kenyon drama department. I heard people in my directing class today talk about the "message" of a play, when just last week Wendy Macleod, in our drama criticism class, had made it clear that plays don't really have messages, they ask questions of the audience by presenting them with a story. So, get the story right = questions. Also, there were a lot of issues earlier in the year about scheduling and we were put at the lowest end of the totem poll. Maybe that's just a bias ringing out. Also, they're much more into exercises, very into talking about ... things I can only classify as "weird," which makes me a horrible snob. Found-space and site-specific theater are entirely fine by me, but listening to an Exeter drama student critique a production I heard them say "it was good, but it doesn't really challenge your notion of theater at all." But do you have to? My actors have already talked about their emotional connection to the characters, how they work out what the character is thinking, emoting, showing, etc. Well, mine haven't talked about emoting or showing, but I've heard other actors talk about it. My personal sense is that the department here is more geared towards artifice than plot, theater rather than drama.

But, on the other hand, the Exeter Drama Department is not Kenyon. Whereas I spent a year learning Aristotle, these kids spend their first semester taking a required class of theater games, simply to develop a sense of play that will last them their careers. My directing class is largely formatted around us directing our pieces and asking the lecturer for advice. There's no real technique involved, though if we want to go into a topic he's happy to present for us (we had a great lecture on staging and the different known ways to arrange an audience), or work one-on-one with us on specific issues. I'm much more free to make mistakes here. I can do stuff here I couldn't do at Kenyon, for better or worse. I'm not so worried about being wrong. And there's got to be some merit in that.

And on the other hand (foot?), I have a lot of free time. A lot of free time to do an independent study of my own. And I haven't made that many British friends, which may sound depressing, but means I can actually read things like The Playwright's Guidebook and do the exercises they give me if I want to. I can actually go to the library and read, or explore the city of Exeter, or go shopping, or whatever. And I'm seeing a lot of plays I will need to know for my Drama major. And I'm taking a class on writing dramatic criticism, which I've never done before and is really interesting! But that's Wendy's class not an English one.

But, speaking of English, what about my English class? Victorian London. It's certainly given me a new perspective on ... Victorian things. And London. It's given me a lot of names and critics and books to look at and the idea of the flaneur, and I have to write a 1,500 word essay about the netherworlds of London in the Victorian era and I don't know how I'm going to do it but it sounds fun. And next semester I'm taking a class on comedy. In England.

But. It's not that it's not fun...it's just...one seminar a week. A paper every now and then, required reading, presentation. Maybe this is just the British system.

And I don't mean it to sound like I have loads of free time: what free time I have because I don't have friends. I am so busy right now my butt's going to fall off. My room is a complete wreck and there's no way I can clean it because I need to be writing something.

And ultimately I do need to be writing something, but plays not papers. I need a play done before senior year. I have Wendy at my disposal. I have England at my disposal. I most likely will never get a chance to come back here. I must make the most of it.

That said, it's very lovely here. Kenyon too, though.