Monday was a pretty regular day, and then Tuesday morning I woke up at four in the morning feeling absolutely terrible. I stayed awake until 6am so that I could run to the store and buy some Sudafed, but I was basically running on empty for the rest of the day. And of course, yesterday in George's voice class, I was supposed to do one-on-one work for my sonnet. I'm not sure I have even mentioned my sonnet before; but each student in our class has to recite a sonnet in front of the class on Thursday and have it videoed to be sent to our professor back at NU. So each student gets about 15 minutes in front of the class with the teacher to work on making their sonnet the best that it could be. I chose Shakespeare's sonnet 43 which is:
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
So yesterday I get up in front of the class and recited my sonnet, which I know by heart. My voice was cracked and I was all stuffed up, but I still tried to put as much effort into it as possible. When I was finished, George says, "Okay, shall we play?" And at this point in time, I know that "playtime" is never a good kind of playtime. He tells me to start walking around the circle of my classmates bringing my knees as high as I can with each step. Then, he tells me to start galloping and then to start running. So there I am, jogging around this small circle as George yells,"Faster! Faster!" Meanwhile, I can barely breathe and am running on three hours of sleep. He then tells me to begin reciting my sonnet, while I run. Yeah, I was not a happy girl. When I finished, I stopped and gave him a pretty nasty look, but I'm sure he realized that his little exercise had no positive effect on the presentation of my sonnet. It had just made me tired, upset, and hating him just a little bit.
He then had me try to direct my sonnet towards one girl in our class. Apparently, this improved the presentation of my sonnet and he was finally satisfied enough to let me sit back down.
Last night, our class went to see our final performance together which was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Here is the trailer from London:
It was an absolutely PHENOMENAL show and I enjoyed every minute of it. It was definitely the favorite of the productions that we have seen with the class this past month. Basically, Christopher (the main character) has Asperger's and is found in his neighbor's backyard with her dead dog. The story is told through the eyes and mind of Christopher (mostly the mind) as he plays detective and tries to find the murderer of Wellington (the dog) as well as discover other secrets that he never knew. What was so incredible about this production was how the stage and whole performance was meant to be like the audience was inside of Christopher's somewhat distorted view of the world. There were no sets besides the grid-stage, and props were minimal. We really saw the ultimate use of the human body, as well as the importance of movement to tell a story. I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat throughout the whole show, not because of suspense, but because of pure shock and amazement at every moment that was brought to life on stage. I kept thinking, "How did they do that?" and "Who would ever think of doing that like that?" I have the utmost respect for the creators of this production, for creating something so beautiful, that truly shows the beauty and abstractness of someone with this type of mental illness and also how they created such an appreciation for it. Not once did you feel bad for Christopher or see him as "different." He was seen as "special" in a good way. I'm pretty sure I'm rambling now, but words could never describe what an incredible experience it was to see this story brought to life on stage and to have the privilege to see it in it's limited viewing time. The story is based off of a book, and I am now dying to get my hands on this book!
Also, Christopher has a thing for prime numbers. So, every prime-numbered seat in the theater was covered with a white sheet and had a little card in it's pocket. Guess who was in a prime-numbered seat? That's right...me! I had to figure out if my name was a prime number. Each letter in my name corresponded to a number, and I had to add the numbers up to see if they summed to a prime number. My name came out to 167, which meant it was a prime number and I won a prize! The prize turned out to be a silly little pin, but it was still such a cool little side-note to go with the awesomeness of the play itself.
Although I was feeling - for lack of a better word - extremely shitty, I still walked home from the theatre in the beautiful London evening down Regent Street. The way the lights lit up each shop and the way the sky was still blue even though it was almost 10pm was absolutely beautiful. It's so sad to think about leaving here and not knowing when I will be back.
Today I woke up feeling much much better than yesterday. I think the drastic changes in weather and my sudden onset of allergies is just a bad combination and is messing with my body. In George's class, we worked on our sonnets more, doing this exercise where we had to walk across the circle to one of our classmates while saying one "thought" in our sonnet. When we arrived at our classmate on the other side, we had to encouragingly push them into the circle so that they could say their line. At one point, I was up to the part in my sonnet where the thought is completed after four full lines. So basically, I had to say "Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, how would thy shadows form form happy show to the clear day with thy much clearer light when to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!" Try reading that out loud, and maybe you will understand why my first attempt didn't go too swell. I tried to speed-talk to try and fit the whole thought into the small diameter of the circle that I had to walk. George laughed at me and told me that instead, I should try to arc myself and walk around the outer edge of the circle instead of making a direct beeline to my classmate, so that I would have more time to say my lines. I tried this, while also trying to project my voice and maintain eye contact with my classmate. When I finally got to my classmate and encouragingly pushed him into the circle, George stopped me and just said, "Wow!" He was so impressed and so happy with my progress and I couldn't help but smile because for once, I actually felt the difference in myself and my voice. I can only hope that tomorrow I can present my sonnet in the same way with such confidence and drive.
In Charlie's class, my group was presenting their play, the one I mentioned all of that criteria about on Sunday. We had decided that our play would be about a family that was going on a road-trip to a campsite. I was playing the nerdy daughter, and I had a younger baby sister, and an older drug-addict sister. Our "mom" and "dad" were supposed to hate each other and it was to be assumed that our "dad" was cheating on our "mom." By the end of our five acts, it was played out that our mom and dad had made up, and that us three sisters were all starting to get along just as we were getting back in the car to head home. BUT, since we love a good plot twist we decided we didn't want a happy ending, and killed all of our characters in a tragic car accident. Yes, it was disturbing. Yes, our classmates were shocked. But we got the effect we wanted! Afterwards, Charlie told us that he was extremely impressed by each of our performances and how we all truly let down our walls and fell headfirst into our characters. I was proud of that, because I felt that other people in the class were waiting to see us fail, but instead we became a very pleasant surprise. As for some of the things on that strange list: the passionate kiss between our mom and dad was just a kiss on the forehead, the uncomfortable silence occurred after a fake fart, my "guilty pleasure" was a huge picture of Prince Harry that I kept hidden in my pillow, the 75 second dance-break was performed to "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go", and the word from another language was "Fuego." It was funny, it was stupid, it was sad, and it was a mess, but Charlie liked it and in the end, we actually had a lot of fun doing it. A lot of my classmates told us that the funniest part was when I woke up at the campsite and took out my Prince Harry head and said to it, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and then gave it a huge smooch! I was glad that I could surprise my classmates and show them the silly side of myself. The day ended on a good note, and then Maggie and I went back to Hummus Bros for dinner because there was no way we were leaving London without eating there again!
Only one more full day of class remains and then Friday is sharing day and our final lunch together! Saturday starts the long journey back to the States and then to New York...
I can't believe it is already June 5th!
Much love from London and hopefully I will be able to blog a few more times before the journey is through.
xoxo
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