The other day I went with my Emory group to see Shaw’s “Major Barbara” over at the National Theatre. Unlike the last time I went, it was now a warm spring day, and Embankment was beautiful in a different way. A glowing sunset.

Our seats were very good, and I was once again impressed with the sets and technical aspects of the show. The weapons factory emerged in a magnificent way on stage, with fog and noise, and platforms upon platforms of shells being lowered from the ceilings. The transition to the Salvation Army shelter was smooth and visually pleasing as well.

The actor playing Andrew Undershaft – Simon Russel Beale – was the same man who played Benedick in the Much Ado production reviewed here in an earlier post. He managed to sound very different, changing his voice to a much more baritone growl, but maintained the same amount of comedic timing and charm, with a capacity for tenderness.

The rest of the cast struck me as a bit weak, although for the most part they hit on their comedic lines. But Alponsus did not really establish clearly what was going on with his character at any point, and quite frankly the title character was flat. Barbara was certainly attractive, and had very distinctive mannerisms and facial expressions – but I feel like a lot of them were simply pointless business, as she has quite a bit of time on stage without lines. I did not really care whether or not she would still marry Alphonsus if he accepted her father’s offer. Mrs. Undershaft definitely fell under the heading of “Good Comedic Timing and Delivery”, but like Barbara, she went to the well with her business quite a bit. I wonder if it had to do with the director, because a lot of the actors had habits which – while not irritating – seemed to be indicating a little bit.

At times when cues were not immediately picked up I could tell it was supposed to give the impression, “Look at how REAL this is!” Instead it felt like the actors couldn’t quite remember what they were supposed to say.

Still, Undershaft carries the show, and it is still Shaw. I consider it worth seeing.

The past two days with the family have been great. Yesterday we headed down to the National Gallery. I’ve been a few times, but going with an artist like my sister, and generally brilliant people such as my parents yields very good conversation. Annalisa really helped me appreciate some paintings in a new way – even the one I claimed was my favorite. Shows what I know. She noticed that the pines in A Winter Scene by Friedrich mirror the cathedral’s shape in the background.

Annalisa and my father both successfully guessed which one was my favorite in the room, although my mother’s guesses made me pay closer attention to a few other ones that I really enjoyed.

Today we went to Westminster Abbey.

A quick side note – London weather. I left Camden at about 12:30 and my walk to the tube I had to take off my coat as it was sunny and hot. When I emerged at Leicester Square 30 minutes later it was pouring and hailing. Chunks of ice were on my shoulders. Baffling.

It was really stunning how many royals and authors are buried at Westerminster. Edward I and III, Richard II, Henry VII, Elizabeth I and Mary I. Then there’s Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Noel Coward, and on and on. A beautiful building, although very busy. Tons and tons of people, and tons of objects and coffins and tombs packing every inch of it. Not the big open spaces like Salisbury Cathedral, for example.

The highlight had to be my dad noticing that the author my mom had written her PhD on was buried there as well. Thing is, it took her ages and she hated him. Bulwer Lytton I believe it was. So we watched and waited until she noticed it, and her reaction was priceless.

As we were all starving, we took the opportunity to hit up the National Gallery restaurant, and had a great tea and meal. We then went to the theater to see the Lord of the Rings musical/play thing. It was very strange, but on the whole enjoyable. Some scenes were kind of asinine, and the story telling was truncated in the interest of time. They skillfully (as Annalisa said) adapted the script, though, and their shortcuts made sense. The stage was a rotating disc, except it also had square sections of it that could rise and form ramps, platforms, and rocky scenes. The lighting was spectacular, and actors could descend from the ceiling.

The small scenes amongst Sam and Frodo and Gollum were very, very good, although I think I had quite enough of Galadriel whimpering about Lothlorien. The acting was spotty. Actors would be strong in one scene, and then behave as if they were uncertain of their lines and not pick up their cues quickly in the next. Gandalf sometimes spoke with great understanding, but other times bellowed for no reason. Boromir put in a strong performance. The best dialog was lifted right from the books, and fortunately they did that frequently.

The most amusing thing for me was that in between Acts II and III, orc actors roamed through the audience with the house lights off, growling at people. It startled me as I was right by one of the doors they first came through, and their movements were very animalistic. The best had to be when they found people in the audience who were terrified by it, and they hounded them. Excellent.

So tomorrow we head out to Italy, Switzerland, and France. I will try to update from the road, but if not, this will be on hiatus until April 27th or so. Needless to say, I will have quite a bit to write about then.

Sunday, the day after my return from Denmark, I went once again on an Emory trip, this time to Bodiam Castle and Down House (the home of Charles Darwin). Both were great, although Bodiam Castle stole the show. It was built in the late 14th century by a rather punchy knight who earned his nobility and wealth by pillaging and successful combat against the French. It’s really almost the stereotypical image most people seem to have of a military castle, complete with moat. We had a tour guide who lived and breathed love of this castle. He showed us around dressed in period armor, and showed us how each element of the castle was carefully designed with defense in mind.

Apparently many people have written that the castle was simply for show, that the military designs aren’t right. However, he refuted this points to us rather convincingly. For example, they say that the gun openings don’t point directly at the drawbridge, therefore wouldn’t work. But, guns when it was built had an extreme spray effect, and therefore weren’t meant to be aimed straight on anyways, and would have worked.

The murder holes were also evidence of this. They were undecorated, and were very high up to prevent spear and crossbow shot at the defenders. This would indicate that there was a practical intent to the design. Through these, though, they wouldn’t pour boiling water or oil or anything like that, because with wooden floors you wouldn’t want to have fires. Instead, they would dump quicklime through onto the attackers.

Apparently in Wales there was an example of a similar castle holding out for months with only 40 men against about 3,000. You didn’t need many inside a castle if it was properly designed, and the men knew what they were doing. At the end of the tour we got instruction on the purposes and evolution of weaponry and armor at the time, and then best of all we got to try them on and mess around with them. The longbow impressed me quite a bit. It’s as tall as I am, at about 6 feet, and could fire with power at a distance of about 300 meters.

On one campaign in France, an army of the English brought with them 2 million arrows, when an arrowhead would take about an hour to make.

Slow on the updates, I realize. Thursday Mike and I went down to Leicester Square and checked the Half Price Theatre Tickets. We let availability and price dictate what we saw, and wound up seeing The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. My memories of the play consisted of the Darien Community Theater production I saw when I was probably seven or eight years old with Mom and Annalisa. I remember the whistling of “Three Blind Mice,” screaming, and a general sense of fear. I also remember all three of us being terrified when we went home, as Dad was on a business trip, and it really got to me and Annalisa in the empty house. Correct me if I’m wrong, Annalisa, I remember it as both of us, but perhaps it was just me.

This production was excellent. We saw it at the St. Martin’s Theatre, which seemed to be rather old, and apparently this was the longest running show in England. While the acting certainly ranged from good to very good, with no particular weak links nor any real stand outs, what struck me the most were the technical aspects. The snow falling outside the window looked incredibly realistic. Actors coming in from the snow had snow on their clothing which actually melted as the jackets remained on stage. Lighting outdoors matched a Winter Afternoon to Evening transition, and seemed to match up with the lines very well. One murder done on stage was matched up with a radio program, and the voicing on that did sound old and very sinister.

The English audience laughed most about class jokes, and jokes poking fun at the English in general.

Thursday night I did not sleep well – in fact, I did not sleep at all. Once it got to be 7am and I still couldn’t sleep I just decided to see how late I could stay up on Friday, so as not to butcher my sleep schedule. Mike and I went to the zoo (note – as it is reading week, many of our friends are out of town). I remembered really enjoying the zoo with Dad years ago, however, then it was very hot and this visit was somewhere in the 40s with quite a bit of wind. The aviary wasn’t as nice as it had been as many of the trees were without their leaves. However, the reptile house and the Nocturnal exhibits were both indoors and fantastic. The tiger, as soon as we approached, came up right against the fence and paced angrily, letting out frustrated little growls and repeatedly making eye contact with Mike.

The African Hunting Dogs were great, as they ran about curiously, and played tug-of-war with a burlap sack. Other highlights included a meerkat that was very charming. It looked like he was smiling. He scurried right up to see the people, and then perched on a rock and began playing with the light fixture. The otters were all indoors and curled up into one big pile. Cute, but rather dull. On the whole I think we saw pretty much every animal, although I was half delirious from exhaustion at that point.

Once we returned, I made it until about 6pm, then passed out until 2am, and went back to bed again from 6am to Noon. I’ve been at the library ever since.

Pitchers & Catchers reported, and also, Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

This afternoon I was supposed to meet with Tanner for lunch during his layover in London. He is on his way to Tanzania to work for three or four months learning Wildlife Park Management or something along those lines. The program was originally supposed to be in Kenya but the election and resultant violence moved him to a safer country. Sadly, the only way to arrange the meeting was via IM two days ago, and somewhere there was confusion, or a mistake, or something forgotten. Regardless, Tanner couldn’t make it, much to my disappointment.

I made the most of it, and walked into the National Gallery. I bought a small Monet notebook, and started writing down the paintings that I liked best in each room. I tell myself its meant for when my family arrives – I feel like my Dad would get a kick out of seeing my favorites, but I’m narcissistic like that. The one that grabbed me the most, oddly enough, was from a painter I’d never heard of before. It’s called “Winter Landscape” and it’s by Caspar David Friedrich. I did a little digging around on Google Image Search, and found some of his other paintings, and I like them very much as well. The nicest one, sadly, was destroyed in WWII as it was housed in Berlin and got bombed somehow.

The rest of my list will either be saved as a surprise for my family – unless they’d rather see the names here. Let me know in the comments.

I also began some research into attire and backgrounds for the painting I’ve asked Annalisa to do. I think the National Portrait Gallery, which is right next door, will yield more usable material. There were also a couple paintings that I found, and earmarked the location of, that I think Annalisa in particular will like.