R.A.D.A., London, and London Theatre - Week 4 - The Mountaintop

Independence Day, the 4th of July, in London. "What should I do?" I asked myself yesterday morning. Fireworks are out. BBQ is out. England, the defeated motherland, would not be celebrating the revolt of those rascals across the pond. Canada Day, last week, they celebrated with gusto. Canada broke up with mommy in a very civilized way.

So, looking through Time Out London, I found the perfect occupation on my day of celebration, I would attend a play about Martin Luther King, called "The Mountain Top" showing at Theatre503. It was the last day of the run, and the Theatre503 is part of the "fringe" here in London. That means it's not on the touristy West End, but somewhere in the middle of London, in an area I had not yet explored. So I bought my ticket to the show, got out my various tube and bus maps and planned my route. I left an hour early to make room for the inevitable getting lost factor. It turned out that my vigorous advanced route planning paid off. I got there with forty five minutes to blow.

Theatre503, is located above the Latchmere Pub near Battersea Park. On this day there were a few dozen rabid rugby fans, tilting back pints and yelling; the television sets placed in all corners of the place. I ascended the stairs in the back of the pub which led up to the theatre. Suddenly the atmosphere changed and I was struck by the difference. Below me in the pub, there were Londoners drinking and yelling, and now I was in a sort of holy place of art. It was quiet, patrons sat around drinking soft drinks, waiting for the show to begin.

"The Mountaintop", by Katori Hall, a young female African-American playwright, graduated with MFAs from both Julliard and Harvord! She's already written numerous plays and acted in numerous plays all around the world, and guest starred in good number of movies and television shows. Whenever I read about people who accomplish this much, the first thing I wonder is, "do they ever sleep?"

The Play starred two vastly talented actors: David Harewood ( a RADA graduate) and Lorraine Burroughs (also a RADA graduate), and was directed by James Dacre. Here's a quick synopsis of the play as taken from Theatre503's web site:

The night before his assassination Martin Luther King retires to room 306 in the now famous Lorraine Motel in Memphis after giving an acclaimed speech to a massive church congregation. When a mysterious young maid visits him, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people.

The reason the maid is mysterious is because she is actually an angel from heaven come to take King back to God (who we learn is actually a black woman who uses a cell phone to communicate with her angels and saints). The script was funny and moving, light and heavy, ridiculous and poignant. I found myself getting annoyed, when in the middle of the very realistic play, we were suddenly expected to believe that she is a messenger of God. It reminded me of the play "Prelude to a Kiss" in which we are asked to believe something ridiculous after having been led down the path of realism. However, the actors' commitment to the moment and the story, soon wooed me back to the play, and by the end I found myself once again enthralled. I was impressed by the way the British actors in this play took on perfect southern U.S. black accents of the 1960s. The only thing that I found sort of bothersome at the beginning is that Harewood spoke, throughout the entire show, in that famous vibrato baritone that King used in his speeches. It was spot on in it's sound, but I can't imagine that King sounded like that when he was in a casual setting. This distraction soon was gone from my awareness as Harewood's commitment to the situation and embodiment of King was extraordinary.

Well, that's it for now. I have to get to work on my scene from Julius Caeser!

Cheers!

R.A.D.A., London, and London Theatre

I've been through a few weeks of school here at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and I'm just now getting the chance to write. They keep us extremely busy and by the time my day is over, I am usually too tired to sit down and write anything. But I'm doing it now, so lets get on with it!


R.A.D.A - The School

The first thing that you quickly realize in attending R.A.D.A is that the faculty are all top notch actors, directors and teachers. All have worked in professional theatre in London and around the world. All have done quite a bit of television and film. Many are writers and poets. All of them are absolute experts on Shakespeare. It's mind boggling to watch a student forget a line during an exercise and then see the movement teacher prompt the student with the next word or phrase. One wonders if they all haven't memorized all the the plays!

We start at 9 A.M. most mornings and go until 6 or 6:30 in the evening. Of course it doesn't end there. By the time the 8 weeks have passed we will each have learned and performed one of Shakespeare's sonnets (which we performed today, I did Sonnet 109), a two person scene (I am playing Brutus in a Cassius and Brutus scene from "Julius Caesar"), a crowd scene from Coriolanus, a song from music of the Elizabethan period, a dance from the Elizabethan period, a fight scene based on a Shakespeare play (my group is doing Romeo and Juliet), and in the last two weeks we will rehearse and perform, an abridged production of one of Shakespeare's plays. My group is tackling "The Merchant of Venice" and the second group is doing "Julius Caesar".

Our classes consist of basic acting, diction, instruction on iambic pentameter, voice, movement, stage combat, music, text analysis, sonnets, breath control and dance. I am probably missing something but you get the idea.


Fun Stuff

I ran into Alan Rickman twice at the school. I am not really a star struck sort of person, but it was a lot of fun to watch my classmates swoon. He actually is in charge of something at R.A.D.A. so he is there quite often.

I saw all the productions put on by the third year graduating students. They were "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", "Motortown" and "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot". Of the three I enjoyed Iscariot the most. It was marvelously directed and acted. It was quite a moving production. In fact I saw it twice.

I saw Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman in "Duet for One". I loved the performances although some of my classmates who saw it found the play to be somewhat dull. I, however think it's a wonderful play.

I saw two productions at Shakespeare's Globe: "Rome and Juliet" and "As You Like It". In both instances I bought a groundling ticket for next to nothing, and stood for the three hours on the ground in front of the stage. Both plays were excellent, but "As You Like It" was simply remarkable.

On Saturday a few of us got up at 6 AM to head over the the Haymarket Theatre in the West End to get in line for tickets to "Waiting for Godot" staring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. I sat in the center seat, front row. It was painful on the neck and the ticket was cheap, but I got to see the masters at work. Afterward, I saw Patrick Stewart, outside and asked to sign the program. He was very friendly and down to earth.

That's it for now. I will be writing much more often in the weeks to come.

London is Now

I'm in London now and wondering how I haven't yet been run over by a taxi driving the wrong way. Step off the curb at home and you always look to your left first. Do that in London and you will be squashed like a meat pie on the subway tracks.

Actually people just sort of ignore the cross walk signs and play chicken with the taxi cabs and double decker busses. Sometimes they even use their baby carriages as improvised human shields. If they see a taxi coming and the crosswalk is red, but they think they might make it accross without being squashed, I have seen them lead with the baby carriage and use it as a method of forcing the taxi cab driver to slow down just enough. After all, running over a full grown Brit is one thing, but squashing a little baby Brit in a carriage is quite another matter.

The other day I went for a walk in the City district of London. It's the original London from Shakespeare's day when there were only 200,000 people living here. All the important buildings are there. The stock market is there. The strangest thing happened at about 6 PM. Suddenly there were hundreds of men swarming the streets, no actually, thousands of men swarming the streets and they were all wearing the same damn suit! I swear to God. I assume they were stock brokers because they all had the same sort of stressed out stern expression. All the suits, and I mean all, were either dark gray or dark blue - no exceptions. And all the shirts were white - no exceptions. Some shirts had stripes, but they were always white. Many of the men stopped for a pint at one of the hundreds of pubs in the area. It was as if I was in the middle of a stock broker zombi movie.


The last time I was here, about 10 years ago, there seemed to be a McDonalds on every street corner. Now, there are still plenty of McDonalds, but now Starbucks is king. Walk down any major street in London and you cannot walk for five minutes without seeing at least two Starbucks. It's absolutely amazing.

I went to the doctor today for a sinus infection. It was absolutely free. I didn't have to pay a penny. I walked out of the hospital feeling like I just got away with shoplifting or something.

Blood Bath in Berkeley

Get over to Berkeley by Sunday to see The Lieutenant of Inishmore. It's the most disgusting, bloody and hilarious two hours you will ever have. The acting is top notch, the humor out of this world and the gore is beyond belief. It's really not to be missed. GO TO THIS SHOW! If you're a cat lover, be warned, you may be irreparably damaged.

The King is in Palo Alto

Yul Brynner with his shiny bald head and colorful outfits hopped across my TV screen with much regularity in the '70s and '80s . The voice over for the commercial would declare with some urgency, "only 2 weeks left to see The King and I at the Orpheum Theatre, starring the legendary Yul Brynner! Get your tickets today!" I never saw the show, but I was convinced that it must have been out of this world incredible. Yul looked so wild and sexually manic, and he was surrounded by leagues of gorgeous young Asian women. Lucky Yul, I used to think.

Originally conceived by Gertrude Lawrence as a vehicle for her return to the musical stage, The King and I was based on Margaret Landon's novel, Anna and the King of Siam. After Cole Porter declined the project, Miss Lawrence turned to Rodgers and Hammerstein who quickly agreed to write and produce it.

The story is set in Bangkok in the early 1860s and tells the story of Anna, an adventurous Englishwoman hired to serve as governess and tutor to King Mongkut's many children. Although Anna has many quarrels with the dictator, the two eventually fall in love, and her influence on the king helps to democratize the country. The role of the king was turned down by the likes of Rex Harrison, Noël Coward and Alfred Drake. Finally, a virtually unknown actor named Yul Brynner was given the part and through the sheer force of his personality, without any change in the script, managed to switch the dramatic focus of the play from Anna to the King. Brynner's name has since become virtually synonymous with the role of King Mongkut.

Palo Alto Players is currently showing their version of this infamous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical through May 10th at the Lucie Stern Theater. The show features, Kerie Darner as Ana, and Don Masuda as The King. Director Bill Olson, presents a very tame, funny, and family friendly King and I. Lots of nice music, a beautiful set, and fun performances make this a pleasant theater experience. Personally, I would have really been excited if Players had taken a risk and made the King darker and more menacing, and if they had created some real chemistry between the King and Ana. It was all just too Disneyesque for my taste. There was a moment of raw emotion near the end of Act II when the King nearly pummeled a young concubine with a bull whip, but it all ended pretty suddenly.

If you're looking for something fun to do that will leave you feeling cheery during these difficult times, go see this show. There are a dozen or so of local children who ham it up and provide numerous cute and hilarious moments. Bring the kids and grandma. They will love it!

Now through May 10th.
For tickets call (650)329-0891.

The Perils of Judgment

I love this clip from Britain's Got Talent, because it points out something that we are falling victim to with the advent of reality television. Everyone assumes that just because this woman named Susan Boyle is a villager with no makeup that she can't sing. Think again. She has a beautiful voice.

The thing that really bothers me about American Idol and the other shows of their ilk is that they pit the auditors against the talent. When a performer goes to an audition, usually, the auditors are hoping the person shines. However, with these shows, an atmosphere of judgment and even cruelty dominates.

That's why I just love this clip, it just lays bare the charade that these shows have become.