What could be more Christmas-in-London than going to a panto? As it looked increasingly certain that I'd be here for the holiday, I made a list of things I wanted to do. One was to get out of town on Boxing Day to go to a mummer's play or some other quintessentially British thing. That one I'll forgo for the trip home! But the thing I wanted to make sure I did was go to a pantomime. And so, last night, still assuming I'd be here, I went to what I thought would be the first of a few pantos. At least I got to one. And what an experience it was.
The show was "Aladdin" at the Hackney Empire theater. The posters show Clive Rowe, a huge black man and one of the grandest of the panto "dames," dressed as a woman with very pink cheeks, very red lipstick, and a wig that looks like a cross between Pippi Longstocking and Diana Ross. I'd never been to a panto before, but that gave me some idea of what the tone of things would be. But by the time a few minutes had passed, I could see it was going to be so much more raucous than I had expected.
The show started with a singing camel and the audience of kids and adults calling back to her. Then the villain came on to a great chorus of boos, which he only egged on. What fun it must be to grow up as a kid in London and go to these shows at Christmas! It was all very bright colors, broad humor, bad puns, great singing and dancing, cross-dressing, quick pacing (I'm learning so much about how comedy is all about rhythm), and great good fun. The show went on for three hours. Part old-style Broadway musical, part vaudeville, part fairy tale, part mellerdrammer, and quite a spectacle.
I wish we had this tradition in the US. For a taste of panto and the panto dame see this BBC piece. Unfortunately it doesn't capture at all how great an entertainer Clive Rowe is. See him sometime if you can.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Minneapolis or bust
The mail came today. No passport. I sent Robin the sad news by email.
30 minutes later, the doorbell rings. Special delivery for Eric Nelson. My passport!
I won't be able to get back into the UK without a new ID card, but it's supposed to come in the post in the next 7 days. So I've arranged with a housemate to FedEx it to me at home. And I've booked a flight!
Robin tells me they're predicting 20 inches of snowfall in Minneapolis between now and tomorrow. Will this saga never end????
Couldn't get a direct flight, so I'm coming via Chicago. Here's hoping I make it all the way home.
30 minutes later, the doorbell rings. Special delivery for Eric Nelson. My passport!
I won't be able to get back into the UK without a new ID card, but it's supposed to come in the post in the next 7 days. So I've arranged with a housemate to FedEx it to me at home. And I've booked a flight!
Robin tells me they're predicting 20 inches of snowfall in Minneapolis between now and tomorrow. Will this saga never end????
Couldn't get a direct flight, so I'm coming via Chicago. Here's hoping I make it all the way home.
Monday, December 21, 2009
... if only in my dreams ...
As in "I'll be home for Christmas..."
Passport didn't come on Saturday so I had to cancel my ticket to fly home today. There's still an outside chance that I'll make it, if my documents come in the next couple of days and if I can get a flight, but it's looking less and less likely.
Passport didn't come on Saturday so I had to cancel my ticket to fly home today. There's still an outside chance that I'll make it, if my documents come in the next couple of days and if I can get a flight, but it's looking less and less likely.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Close encounters of the painful kind
In the past week or two I've had an increasing number of close calls while biking in London. For a while I've thought that an antipathy toward cyclists must be part of the cabbies' union code of conduct--they seem to love squeezing the curb so you can't get by--and you also find car and bus drivers who do the same thing. Twice within 10 minutes a week or so ago I almost got run off the road by van drivers, and once again earlier this week by an ambulance that wasn't in any apparent hurry to get anywhere. It can't be that I'm invisible. I wear one of those day-glo green cycling jackets or, in cold weather, an even brighter green vest with big reflective stripes on it, plus head and tail lights on the bike.
Then on Wednesday I got caught between another bike that wouldn't move over as I passed him and a tourbus that veered in my direction as it passed me. The bus and I bumped twice before I went ass over teakettle onto the asphalt. My bike fared better than I did, but we both got banged up. My elbow was the size of a baseball, but x-rays showed no broken bones. Now I'm just sore in the ribs and have a puffy, colorful forearm as the fluid from the elbow disperses. I was very lucky.
Still hoping for that luck to manifest itself in a passport in the post so I can come home for Christmas. Has to happen today or tomorrow.
Last night was our final presentations for the term. The Back to the Future platform piece went well. People tell me I was born to play Doc Brown. That part was a lot of fun. Lord of the Rings has come a long way and became quite complex, dark as well as comic. Dracula and Moses also were presented well--no, not in the same piece--as well as four commedia pieces, including "Mamasita Chocolate," a randy Latina piece featuring two hot-to-trot parents and their bratty little boy who keeps interrupting them, with a mixup of medicine bottles (dad's Viagra and the sleeping pills intended for the baby) as a complicating factor. Words cannot describe...
A friend commented that people from Latin cultures seem to have a special feel for commedia. Thinking back on it, of the pieces last night, the women in Mamasita (from Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Brazil) and a Portuguese lothario in another piece were among the stars of the genre in our class. Many English-speaking actors seemed to carry their characters in the head and shoulders and with a high voice, while those who found it better like the four above brought an earthier, more pelvic grounding. Surely it had something to do with who played more with themes of sexuality and libido and who played more with hatred and greed. Which may also be cultural markers.
Today we see the Initiation Course final projects and have our Christmas party, before adjourning to a pub, I'm sure.
Fingers crossed for good news in the post.
Then on Wednesday I got caught between another bike that wouldn't move over as I passed him and a tourbus that veered in my direction as it passed me. The bus and I bumped twice before I went ass over teakettle onto the asphalt. My bike fared better than I did, but we both got banged up. My elbow was the size of a baseball, but x-rays showed no broken bones. Now I'm just sore in the ribs and have a puffy, colorful forearm as the fluid from the elbow disperses. I was very lucky.
Still hoping for that luck to manifest itself in a passport in the post so I can come home for Christmas. Has to happen today or tomorrow.
Last night was our final presentations for the term. The Back to the Future platform piece went well. People tell me I was born to play Doc Brown. That part was a lot of fun. Lord of the Rings has come a long way and became quite complex, dark as well as comic. Dracula and Moses also were presented well--no, not in the same piece--as well as four commedia pieces, including "Mamasita Chocolate," a randy Latina piece featuring two hot-to-trot parents and their bratty little boy who keeps interrupting them, with a mixup of medicine bottles (dad's Viagra and the sleeping pills intended for the baby) as a complicating factor. Words cannot describe...
A friend commented that people from Latin cultures seem to have a special feel for commedia. Thinking back on it, of the pieces last night, the women in Mamasita (from Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Brazil) and a Portuguese lothario in another piece were among the stars of the genre in our class. Many English-speaking actors seemed to carry their characters in the head and shoulders and with a high voice, while those who found it better like the four above brought an earthier, more pelvic grounding. Surely it had something to do with who played more with themes of sexuality and libido and who played more with hatred and greed. Which may also be cultural markers.
Today we see the Initiation Course final projects and have our Christmas party, before adjourning to a pub, I'm sure.
Fingers crossed for good news in the post.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Waiting
No answer yet to the question whether I'll be home for Christmas. My visa application is still in the works and though I've asked for it to be expedited, I've received no answer from the UK Border Agency. I've tried all the angles here that Robin and I can think of, and she's tried working channels through Sen. Klobuchar's office back home, but to no avail. I have talked CheapTickets.com into giving me a partial refund on my ticket if needed, but that's small consolation. So now I have six days to receive two key pieces of mail from the UKBA (my passport and a newly issued ID Card for Foreign Nationals) or I have to cancel my ticket and stay here for the holidays.
On to more definite things... Tomorrow the last week of Term 1 begins. Thursday night we'll present the best-of pieces: some commedia, some platform. The platform piece I'm in is still in the running. The commedia piece I was in didn't make the first cut. Tomorrow we present the remaining pieces (4 platform, about 8 commedia) to the teachers one last time and then I assume we have yet another class meeting to decide what will be on the program. There are a few excellent pieces and several very good ones, judging from what we saw last Monday. But pieces can change quite a bit in a short period of time--and sometimes for the worse--so I look forward to seeing them one more time tomorrow.
I'll be more reflective at another time when I have more leisure--especially if I'm here for the holidays--but for now just one fun link that an American classmate sent around as we worked on our commedia pieces. Read it and weep, or laugh, or scratch your head. His comment: "If you love commedia and want to make a living sharing it with paying audiences, the public may not be ready for you..."
On to more definite things... Tomorrow the last week of Term 1 begins. Thursday night we'll present the best-of pieces: some commedia, some platform. The platform piece I'm in is still in the running. The commedia piece I was in didn't make the first cut. Tomorrow we present the remaining pieces (4 platform, about 8 commedia) to the teachers one last time and then I assume we have yet another class meeting to decide what will be on the program. There are a few excellent pieces and several very good ones, judging from what we saw last Monday. But pieces can change quite a bit in a short period of time--and sometimes for the worse--so I look forward to seeing them one more time tomorrow.
I'll be more reflective at another time when I have more leisure--especially if I'm here for the holidays--but for now just one fun link that an American classmate sent around as we worked on our commedia pieces. Read it and weep, or laugh, or scratch your head. His comment: "If you love commedia and want to make a living sharing it with paying audiences, the public may not be ready for you..."
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