About a week ago, I worked with the lovely and talented Emma Winter at Winterwell's Head Over Heels Valentine's Day Party.  It was tons of fun: dressing in cloaks, with headlamps and mirrors, wandering through a smokey room, filled with balloons and slanty light.  I haven't done much (or really any) immersive performances before and it's a real art to interacting with the audience and other performers in an improvised piece.  But so exciting, I met some really cool, creative people and there will be more to come!

Well kids, a while back I promised more photos from my New Hampshire summer of playing men.  And they finally arrived.  I'm still trying to dig up a photo of me as the Gravedigger (har har) and Arthur Renfield but here's a smattering:

Last Monday I saw Eugene O'Neill's SEA PLAYS at the Old Vic Tunnels.  First of all, let me just say how COOL the Old Vic Tunnels are.  This arts space is basically converted train tunnels underneath Waterloo Station.  It's all brick and feels like a pirate cove.  I felt like Blackbeard, sneaking down dark passageways in and out of the candlelight.  The staging for the show was equally atmospheric: the audience was herded past a ship's boiler room and into the theatre, where the show began with a ferocious storm.  Men ran in and out dousing each other with buckets of water, the lighting and sound design giving us only glimpses of the horror.  While I'm not really a fan of O'Neill's early writing, this production really physicalized the moments in between. 

After writing a Socratic dialogue between Aristotle and a contemporary theatre worker about the possibility of tragedy today, I went to see JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK at the National Theatre.  Set in Ireland during the Civil War, the play tracks one family's rise and fall into disintegration.  It was well-acted, beautifully designed and yes, I daresay, tragic.  I'm not religious, but the prayer which playwright Sean O'Casey gives to two mothers who've lost their sons broke my heart: "Blessed Virgin, where were you when me darlin’ son was riddled with bullets? Sacred Heart o’ Jesus, take away our hearts o’ stone, and give us hearts o’ flesh! Take away this murdherin’ hate, an’ give us Thine own eternal love!"  

Guys, if last term was awesome (as the above photo indicates) then this term promises to be amazing.  I'm taking two playwrighting classes, voice, theatre history, producing, Alexander Technique, and various workshops which include Meisner, Mask and Commedia, Devising with Complicite, and possibly clown.  Huzzah indeed.  My ultimate goal with these classes and my dissertation next term is to have a one-woman show I can bring back to the States!  2012 is going to be a good year :).

Happy New Year everyone!  (Ok, I'm 22 days late...but most of that was taken up writing an essay about tragedy.  Here are some photos of "What I did Over Christmas Vacation:"

YOU ME BUM BUM TRAIN is becoming a hugely popular recurring immersive theatre experience in London.  And I have had the privilege of performing in it.  Due to the surprise and secret nature of the show, I can't really divulge any details (I had to sign a confidentiality agreement).  It's kind of like Fight Club.  But believe me when I tell you it's amazing and I wish we were able to fund performances like this in the US!  The reviews are glowing: read what The Evening Standard had to say about it here.  And even more exciting, it's returning in the summer as part of the Barbican's season - you can read all about that here including other reviews of other iterations of the show.  Get pumped people, I'm coming back to the States with IDEAS ;).

Well, the semester (or term, as they say here) is over.  I am officially one third the way through my masters degree. Whew!  I'm tired!  The last couple of weeks involved one big paper, an even bigger portfolio project, and a performance.  I performed as the Duchess of Malfi in a devised piece titled IN SECRET about powerful women and their less-powerful lovers.  Tragedy usually ensues.  I'll be uploading video content from that performance soon.  My portfolio project involved paper Matryoshka dolls surrounding part of a play I wrote, and other musings on the semester.  My paper argued that theatre critics have become less critical with the advent of blog commentary.  Take from that what you will :).  I'm so excited to have a three week break, which I'll be spending with my mom and sister in London and Glasgow!  Bring on the Christmas markets!  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

This afternoon I saw Schaubuhne's HAMLET at the Barbican.  Let me preface this by saying I'm currently reading Helen Freshwater's Theatre & Audience which calls for audience participation (trendy since the '60's) to be more empowering.  I couldn't agree with her more.  As an audience member for HAMLET (I should have known better than to sit in the front row), I was in danger of being sprayed with water, juice, blood and mud, hit by Hamlet - who went through the audience at one point thrusting his muddy hands in people's faces - or finally, as about 3 people had to, hold him, when he accidentally smacked his head on the cement overhang and fell down clutching his bleeding face.  He did, however, fart audibly in my direction and then asked me if I could smell it.  Polonius also videotaped me watching the play within a play.  I wish I had sat in the dress circle.  Now, I am not averse to audience participation at all - except when I don't have a choice in the matter.  And in this two-and-a-half hour production with no intermission (!), I had no choice, and no idea what would fly through the air next.  

About two weeks ago I went to see The Tricycle Theatre's production of THE RIOTS, a documentary play taken from eyewitness accounts and interviews of the August riots in London.  The play was democratic - offering views from opposing sides without seeming to side with one or the other.  What was clear though, was that "people" (citizens and lawmakers alike) need to pay attention, because an event like this could happen again.  That particular weekend I saw the play, was the same weekend a police officer pepper sprayed a group of unarmed peaceful student protestors at UC Davis.  And soon after that, local governments began cracking down on the OCCUPY movements.  So the play resonates farther than the London riots.  
As I write this, I'm also writing a final paper for one of my classes on how theatre criticism can reveal broader social values (I think I actually just restated the assignment!).  I've been researching reviews of Edward Bond's SAVED (see one of my earlier posts) and many of them comment on how SAVED is a play that is brought out in "emergency situations."  I think THE RIOTS has a similar purpose.  This is an emergency situation, and we need to pay attention.