Grotowski to Gambon

mind=rocked. we saw 'no man's land' last night at the gate theatre, and it. was. amazing. so indulge the obnoxious, know-it-all theatre critic in me for a hot second; first of all, not only was michael gambon in it (dumbledore) so was the guy who plays filch in harry potter, whose name i'm sad i can't remember because i was actually watching him more than gambon, AND thomas boleyn from 'the tudors' (nick dunning) AND some uber-famous comedian from 'little britain' (david walliams), which i've never seen, but the rest of western europe is crazy for. he's apparently working on 'little america,' because our country can't come up with any good tv shows on our own anymore, and since we're tired of stereotyping ourselves, we might as well have a handsome brit do it. it was pinter, so no one really had any idea what was going on, but i think i got some wisps of a theme towards the end. the whole thing was a study in being still--michael gambon barely moved for half an hour. spooner, the role played by filch, talked basic nonsense for the same amount of time, but it was enthralling. wasn't so keen on the other two, but nick dunning bites in 'the tudors', so maybe i was just being pessimistic. the lighting was gorgeous, and the theatre is thisbig: less than 500 seats (i think, we all know how bad i am at numbers).

anywho, we had our first voice class today, which my roommates and i were late for, due to an underestimation of how long it takes to cross the city on foot; all he had to say was "class starts at 9:45, please be here then," and i set my watch ten minutes back, figuratively speaking. our teacher is cathal quin (pronounced 'cahal'--don't ask, gaelic is supa weird), and he is probably 3/4 of my size. we're working on long breathing exercises individually with him, which is amazing, because he can tell us where we hold our tension, and literally show us how to breathe. it's a pretty sweet opportunity, to get that one-on-one time, and i'm really excited because i know my voice needs work. we also had our second acting class today, with donal, who i'm kind of in love with. he's from co. kerry, and he says "ye" instead of "you" and cuts all of his "th"s into "t"s. i stood by him in a circle and he turns to me and says "jesus (or 'jaysus'), ye're tall, aren't ye? i'm goin ta stand over here." to be fair, i am literally taller than everyone here, including the guys. i also learned in devising that i don't know anything about theatrical history--questions like "you know who grotowski is, yeah?." um, no. is that a problem?

we had our first contemporary irish drama class, and we're reading 'playboy of the western world.' it's kind of interesting, because the first time it was performed, it caused riots because of it's stereotypification of the irish--alcoholic, reckless, prone to outbursts. it's so funny here--the irish are extremely protective of their national identity, probably because of the war (or "the trouble"--the irish downplay everything. if they want you to go to the store, they say "do you think, maybe, if you have time, you could down and maybe pick up a few eggs?"), but when that identity is abbreviated in any way, they get very defensive. it's like they don't like to be exposed--and they are a pretty private people. it's also nice, to be in a country like this--the streets aren't too loud, everyone respects your space (figuratively--we've been asked if we need help getting around several times by someone coming straight into our faces). it's interesting to see the nuanced differences between our cultures--no offense to my londoner across the sea, k, but i'm glad i came here instead of england. i think, and maybe it's because i've never been to england, that the national consciousness here runs a lot deeper because of recent political struggles, and also because it's a country that literally just became multi-national ten years ago (as in, no minorities). i don't know, those are my random feelings.

i'll leave you with this: DON'T LET SARAH PALIN TAKE OVER. i've been reading about her here (oooh, they hate her), and she is becoming more the devil each day. gross.