Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

London was as it was several weeks ago: big and quiet and crowded.

I learned several new things: the phrase "butt burglar." What many consecutive hours awake will do to you. How to use the Central Line and the National Railway without someone telling me how to do it.

I guess I'll do this "classic narrative" after all. I'm getting tired of trying to portray London thematically. Brecht was totally two weeks ago.

After spending a whole night sitting next to my dear friend Earl (Grey) and drinking him far too much, I completed my Directing assignment: an objective assessment of my production of Oleanna. I think I actually learned something in doing it too, which is always one of those warm fuzzy feelings.

I wandered around trying to complete Exeter University's insane amount of paper-turning-in requirements (which include hunting a tiger and bringing back its claws) with all of my London equipment on my back - I had stuffed it all in my book bag. This posed a problem, because I had to walk up and down the hill from Thornlea to the Library and the Key Store in order to print, staple, buy an envelope, fill out forms, etc. etc. etc. I don't understand why they can't just ask for it to be handed in during a class, which would seem to be the SANE thing to do, but again, I have long since learned not to question British logic.

Finally I turned it in (booyah) and made my way to Exeter St. David's, where I waited for the other K'Nexers. I saw some golden labs in the distance who were just playing around with each other, but I guess their owner came and got them.

It was cold. Like, COLD. The phrase "bitter wind" is now vividly defined in my mind. And I didn't have my hat anymore (see "Extra Care With Strangers"), but what I did bring out, probably for the first time in a while, was my scarf. So I had my scarf and my Orvis hat, my big blue jacket with pockets loaded up with McVites (?) Milk Chocolate Digestives, a water bottle, my London AtoZ; then my pants had my notepad and my assorted train cards in the back pockets, and the usual in front. All in all I felt armored up for the trip.

The train ride there consisted of me drifting in and out of sleep (Earl was waring off by now), as well as reading a few essays on Greek theatre from The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre. Notice, I just said "a few" and "essays" and "read" in the same sentence. It's really the first time I've enjoyed reading essays for no graded purpose. Well, maybe not the first time, but certainly it's the time that I read the most essays without it being for a grade. w00t!

There were also these kids sitting behind me who were absolutely amazing. They probably weren't the best kids to be on a train, but they were so cool. Props to them. The guy next to me had a serious problem with them, but I thought they rocked. They'd make up songs about their stuffed animals, or talk about things they saw outside, and one even leaned over to the other one to freak him out and said "I just farted!" It was actually a whole family, too. There was a big sister who was probably about 20 with her iPod, and when one of her brothers, probably about 10, came over, she let him listen to her music, and he hopped in her lap. There was a grandpa sitting next to her who grumbled "that's not music." It was like the definition of family comedy. It hearted it.

Once the train was done, off to The Vicarage in Kensington, again, because they were awesome. This time I got a single on the top floor, so no balcony for me. Sad day. But it did mean that I had some peace and quiet in my room, which was cool, and hot chocolate all to myself.

From the Vicarage we went to Nando's, and on the way encountered none other than Japhet Balaban! We were just walking on the streets and suddenly bam, there he was. Clay, Johanna, Ken and I all stopped to chat about Kenyon and life and all - we heard news about Molly Rice's playwriting class. Molly Rice is Wendy's replacement for the year while she's gone, and Molly is producing a play called "Blood Bonds: Of Brothers and Sisters" or something at Kenyon instead of Kramer doing a piece. She's teaching a class that goes with this production, the idea being - at least I thought - that the class would right Blood Bonds, and then serve as actors in it. Apparently, according to Japhet, I was very wrong. Molly instead is taking research from the Ensemble Writing students and using it to write Blood Bonds herself. Then she'll have them be actors. This seems kind of silly to me, but oh well. I'll lump that on top of Scabies, Swipe Cards, and Neo-Naziism as proof that things go crazy without the K'Nexers there to defend Kenyon.

From Nando's we went to the Imperial Museum, which at times seemed more like a haunted house than a museum. It was centered around the 20th century wars and conflicts that not only the British Empire, but the world, had faced. So they had a reproduction of the trenches of WWI that you could walk through, and submarines and tanks on display, and this great little installation about the Cold War with the major political figures on either side making their speeches (starting with Churchill's talk about an Iron Curtain, going through Kennedy and the Cuban Missle Crisis, resting for a long time on Reagan's "evil empire," and ending with Bush in Milan. The communist side had a bunch of people I don't know, apart from Gorbachev and Stalin, but they were making similar speeches). And while these speeches were facing off, there was a little gas-meter beneath them with "War" and "Peace" on either end, and the needle kept waving between the two. I found it a rather over-simplified version of a half-century-long struggle.

Also, the British take on war and politics is much different than you would see in any American museum. Although there was a statue to veterans in the center of the main lobby, I would go so far to say either a) The British idea of War is in no way romanticized, and the grim truth of it is part of the culture, or b) the Curator of this museum is a pacifist. Not that I have a problem with either.

From there we went to dinner at a crepe place on the Thames (mmmm...beef and pepper crepe...) and Chatroom/Citizenship at the National Theater. I have to review these, so I won't really go into detail about them, but something majorly important did happen there.

I SAW ALAN RICKMAN.

He was in line to get a ticket, I think, and I was standing a few feet away with Lucia and Clay. I leaned in to Lucia and whispered:

"Is that Alan Rickman?"

Lucia looked around, "Alan who?"

Clay popped in, and I asked him, "Clay, is that Alan Rickman?"

He looked over, then back, "I'll check."

Clay nonchalantly waltzed around just barely into Alan's peripheral vision, and then did one of those fake-yawning-turns to see Alan's profile. In synch with Clay's turn, Alan turned himself and walked briskly into the bookstore, where he and his wife (who was following him) purused a book for a few seconds and then walked away. We didn't see them again.

Chatroom/Citizenship ended and we went back to The Vicarage and went to bed.

The next morning, we had breakfast and then headed off to a farmer's market in Notting Hill, featured in the movie Notting Hill, where I got a cup of warm apple juice. Tasty. From there we went to try to get into the Aquarium by the London Eye, but it was way expensive, and then Ken and I broke off to meet our friend Kristin Dolan and her dad for lunch nearby Trafalgar Square. At least I think that's how it happened. Well, Ken and I ended up in Trafalgar Square, where we waited for Kristen. We watched a guy walking around with a falcon on his arm scaring pigeons, and were amused.

Kristen showed up, and we headed off to "The Texan Embassy," a Tex-Mex restaurant in Westminster that was every American stereotype you could ever imagine. It was kind of funny. We talked with Kristen of her amazing adventures in Oxford, where she's studying History through IES.

Once we had finished, we said goodbye and headed over to the Tate Modern (THE modern art museum in London, for those who don't know), where Read Baldwin lead the K'Nexers on a Modern Art tour, complete with free pads and sketchbooks! I actually learned something about appreciating visual art, and its world and all that fun stuff. This will help in my attempts to write The Work of our Hands, a play that I keep tossing around about painting.

From there we went to find a little place to eat, which was a long and arduous adventure but ended up in a little cafe/hostel that made tasty food and had tables with comic book pictures all over them! From there, we went to see King Lear.

This I am not writing a review about, but almost wish I was. For one, we had really good seats. The theater had a square thrust out into the center and voms, a little like the Bolton, and a larger proscenium in the back. We were on the ground level, so we were right there with the action, even if we were many many rows back.

The set was this Roman-Aqueduct/Opera house pillary thing swooping along the back, covered by red drapes, with other constructions all around it and doors and things. As the play went on it broke more and more. The stage itself had lime and dust at appropriate places, like you were visiting some old site. And then Lear enters in his abdication ceremony to an organ, dressed as a Russian Czar/divine-right-of-kings style king. The play begins.

King Lear, I must confess, is one of those plays that I have been assigned to read often, and never really READ. I know snippets of it, e.g. "speak what we feel, not what we ought to say," I'm familiar with the dramaturgy, like Peter Brook's production and how that worked, and I can even comment on it as a piece of Shakespeare's writing. But I'd never really READ it. So, haha, I thought, this will be a chance for me to see a genuinely amazing piece of Shakespeare that I'm unfamiliar with - I can see it like the first audiences must have seen it.

I don't know if it was that Wendy was sitting next to me, so I felt like I was being assessed, or if I was having an off night, or if I was really in a bad seat, or if Ian McKellan's presence onstage reminded me instantly that I was watching a play, but the RSC's production of King Lear directed by Trevor Nunn with Ian McKellan as Lear didn't wow me. At least, it didn't wow me in the moment. As I think about it more and more I find myself being retroactively interested, but in the moment, there, as an audience member...I wasn't bored, but I wasn't that interested. I missed out on occasionally why things happened in the plot, and it's not that the Shakespearean sounded like jibberish to me, but there were times when it didn't make sense. And this is me. This is me who owns more than one shirt alluding to Shakespeare.

So either, I supposed, the problem was in the production, my perception of the production, or myself as a person. Being me, I first concluded that the problem was in myself as a person, and proceeded to go on a diagnostic check of my character searching for any potential threats to my ability to be swept off my feet by what I'm supposed to love best. I think that was intermission. I have to say the second half was much better, since it's where things really picked up. But again, even during the second half, things were still a little tinged with "eh..." Everyone gave the show a standing ovation at the end - they've said at Kenyon and Pennsylvania Governor's School of the Arts that you should only give a standing ovation for what you honestly like. I often break that rule, and I did that night because I figured the production must've really been good and I just couldn't get it.

It was fun sitting next to Wendy though, who loved it. I had told her about Alan Rickman, and she insisted that she saw Steven Sondheim somewhere in the first few rows, and I went down to check during intermission even though I didn't have much of an idea what Steven Sondheim looked like.

We had a little trouble getting home, Meghan Gibson was trying to get on the Tube when the doors slammed shut and separated her from the group. But we met up with her later and all was well.

The next day I went to St. Paul's Cathedral for service, and it was amazing. I kept thinking I heard organ chords echoing in ordinary sounds, like a hand-dryer in a bathroom.

Eventually I made my way home, catching the same train as Wendy and her family. Foss was reading a series called "The Vampirates" and I busted his chops about it (Me: What are these vampires weak to? Foss: Uh...sunlight...stakes through the heart... Me: Okay, it's important. Cause sometimes vampires are weak to water, so that would be silly cause they're pirates. And sometimes only holly stakes work on them, the brambles still have to be on and all. So you see, this guy who writes this could very easily mix up his lore and have things fall apart...)

Then I collapsed and went to bed. For a little while.