“Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.”
So, I just saw a production of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounters" adapted for the stage by a woman named Emma Rice. Evidently, this production has been bouncing around the world for around six years, but I'd only heard of it briefly and never in any detail.
So, of course, I was flabbergasted when it was amazing and intricate and a fascinating piece of theater. It didn't quite hit all the notes, and I wanted it to mean more, but at the same time-- it was interesting and effective and used projections and space in fascinating ways, and...
Why am I doing film when I love theater so much? I should be doing theater.
Also: Losing the art in the artifice. That's how "Jekyll and Hyde" needs to be reviewed. It's lost the story in the trappings, like so many people do. Like the real hamburgers grilled on the Steppenwolf set-- Yeah, you can do it, but do you need to?
I've been reading Peter Brooks, and he's managed to vocalize all these things I've always kind of felt about theater but could never quite put into words. The Empty Space is amazing.
If you're traveling in the north country fair Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline Remember me to one who lives there She once was the true love of mine.
If you go when the snowflakes storm When the rivers freeze and summer ends Please see if she's a coat so warm To keep her from the howlin' winds.
Please see if her hair hangs long If it rolls and flows all down her breast Please see from me if her hair hangs long That's the way I remember her best.
I'm a-wonderin' if she remember me at all Many times I've often prayed In the darkness of my night In the brightness of my day.
So if you're travelin' in the north country fair Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline Remember me to one who lives there She once was a true love of mine.
1) Great improv class where we all were complimented on the things we do well. Included in mine: How positive I am (from Molly), how sincere my performances always are so that people always believe me, no matter the character (from China), my attention to specificity, the way I'm a team player and really supportive (from Jose), among others. Lots of really positive things that made me really happy. Ariana and I then did a thing where we just had to keep talking for a full few minutes without even stopping, and it was hilarious and worked well.
Also got to scream and be super overdramatic at the end of class when we did a horror-movie set-up. Lots of fun screaming after "Greg," (David Federman) as he was devoured by a tentacled monster offstage.
2) Meeting with Heidi. She gave me things to read; I feel a little better about my creative piece. I also now understand how her thinking face is a terrifying angry face; I gave her a one-line synopsis of my creative piece, and she just looked at me in what I thought was judgment for a good thirty seconds as I panicked and wondered if I'd been really dumb about it all along.
3) Sat in Logan Cafe with some tea (next to Elise, actually, who was working on a novel adaptation of A Winter's Tale) for the next two and a half hours reading articles. Got through the ones Heidi gave me, and then went to the Reg to pick up books on translation theory for my meeting with Alison James (whose name I accidentally spell Allison all the time) tomorrow.
4) Hanging out with Robert. WE built huge hamburgers, and I feel better about our relationship than I did yesterday and better about life. Many cuddles ensued, and I fell asleep for a couple of hours in his bed. Woke up around 10:40ish, and I've been half-working since. It's hard to focus late at night these days-- I'm not sure why.
I've discovered I feel better about things when I have things under control. I wrote that missing assignment for Screenwriting today and turned it in, getting that off my plate, and having things to read to make real BA progress has made me feel better about all of that. So, well, progress.
Listening to the "Newsies" soundtrack that showed up in the mail today.
Crying to "Santa Fe." It's so beautiful, and just another reminder that seeing the show in New York wasn't a crazy dream-- It really happened. All those years of dreaming about the show making it big, and it's gone so far..
My a cappella group is just wonderful. We had a three-hour rehearsal yesterday where we really didn't do anything but talk, but afterwards we went to the place in Logan where we're going to be for the Art Apocalypse seventh week and sang "The Book of Love" (which needs work, but is slowly coming back together) and "Dog Days." The latter sounded great, though we need to work on soloist balance in the space because there's so much reverb, and we had so much fun singing it.
Looking up, we realized someone had been watching us from the balcony (the space spans two stories, kind of a shaft between two floors). Usually, when that happens, it's because someone heard us singing and was enamored or intrigued enough to listen. Today, the guy was an older, Asian man, who did not look pleased:
"Could you all find a room? You're really distracting."
It's ten-fifteen at night in an ARTS building that we've been encouraged to use in every manner! We were told we should use all the space! Also, we can hear the piano music from upstairs through closed doors-- why aren't you angry at them?
It was just really strange. Ugh, people.
Also: I won my first solo in UW last night! I'm singing "If A Song Could Get Me You," and I'm really excited and a little bit nervous about it. The stuff Felicia taught us when she filled in for Adrian our second week of "Onstage Presence" about how to trick your body into releasing all of its tension really works-- I'm surprised and thrilled by it.
In other news, Robert took me out to dinner the weekend of April 5th to a lovely Italian restaurant uptown in Belmont. We ate delicious food (some kinds of lobster and pumpkin pasta), ignored the awkwardly-friendly waiter, and then went out to bookshops and to get outrageously expensive Belgian sugar waffles afterwards. Took the redline out and back, had no problems. Very pleasant evening, just a couple days after the anniversary of the April 5 Mountain Goats concert that we've decided to quasi-count as our first date.
I've got to go and meet up with Anna Meredith and everyone at our new apartment (oh, that's right, I haven't told you-- I'm moving out next year into an apartment on 55th and Ellis. It's going to be ridiculously out of the way for everything Theater-related I do, unfortunately, but it'll save my family a lot of money, I'll get to learn to cook for myself [and host dinner parties and such!], it'll be a 171 trip away from Robert in his new apartment, and... I think it'll be okay.). We're signing things today, I assume. Then, it's off to Logan to work on my sound project until dinner, when I'll grab something to eat and go see Khyle Gill's BA performance.
Things are really looking up this quarter, aren't they? Knock on wood they stay that way...
Not quite feeling right. Everything feels twisting and awkward and wrong-- like I've just missed a step going downstairs, like I don't want to do anything but I know the ship is sinking, like there's just dread lurking in my peripheral vision but I can't pinpoint why.
Hate it. I just want to be happy, like I was Saturday night running around downtown with Robert after seeing "Red." Happy like that. Not depressed and frustrated and balled-up like I've felt since.
Five classes was probably a bad idea, even if I'm auditing one of them.
I'm supposed to be off-book today, but I can't even care. I can't seem to care about anything right now, and I don't know if it's the exhaustion or if I'm sick or what's happening.
I don't know how I haven't mentioned this, because I've been thrilled about it since the news came out months ago that the was a stage adaptation headed for the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey... But it's official. It's going to Broadway, now, and I can't even see straight.
Dreams come true...
Funny-- if not for Newsies, I'd probably be a completely different person than who I am today. The NML gave me amazing friends, things to write about, and some incredible confidence to become the person I've turned out to be. I found that movie in 6th grade going to French Camp with Libby, and it's still one of the things that got me interested in musicals and theater, as well as one of those things that can just make me smile no matter when.
Good stuff. It deserves to do well, especially the way they've apparently rewritten it and made it even better than before. ♥
Quick entry, because I'm so busy I can't see straight.
Classes are crazy. I'm in "Henry IV," going up 10th week (Poins/Sir Richard Vernon). Back in UW and actually going to rehearsals and having a blast.
Arabic is wonderful but so time consuming-- I'm only just now caught up on it all, after a hideously embarrassing and awful class on Friday. Jake Smith's in the class, though, and the best person ever, so we're having a blast. Learning so much! Great times!
Also talked to the French department on Friday (finally). Still trying to pin down double major. Love Heidi Coleman and her class to no end; John Muse is incredible and half of "Impossible Theaters" consists of UT people.
CMCB last night, Deans' Men party the night before followed by Blues and Ribs and swing dancing, tipsy, with Alexis and Ted. Needed a night like that, to get lost in the sound and the world.
Robert's still great. We saw "Clybourne Park" a couple weekends ago-- Brilliant piece of theater. Got called a "young girl" at the talkback, because we were obviously the youngest people there by around forty years.
Things are crazy and hectic and I've been worried about how I'm going to handle everything, stressed without thinking about my stress, and incapable of keeping this tiny room clean... But it's getting better. This weekend helped a lot, and being basically caught up on Arabic helped a lot, and now it's just a question of staying on top of the wave of work instead of getting crushed under it.
I also wrote some more Owl Child and edited some poems, so they're getting better. I'm going to submit to Sliced Bread, and I just want to be sure I'm submitting the best stuff, you know?
tired
smiling, teary
cheerful
anxious