Wicked, the Sequel

Did the author of The Wizard of Oz, have the plot of wicked in mind when he wrote his book, Alex asked after the performance.  Wyona explained to him, probably not.  Rebecca said later that Derrida and Foucalt might disagree.  In this instance, I am putting my money on Wyona -- not because she is right, but because that is the answer that I understand best.

Our seats were good -- a restricted view on the side, but we were in the stalls on row L, which was sweet.  When I saw Wyona come in before the performance, taking a chair in the middle of the stalls, I went over to spend the last 5 minutes  before the curtain went up, talking to her.  An usher asked, "Are all of you together, for if you are, I can find you better seats so you can all sit together. 

 "Actually, this is not my seat at all," said Wyona.  "See the large man over there.  He is in my seat.  I gave it to him, for he is 3 seats over and cannot possibly fit into the one he has purchased."

"I will get you all together in good seats," he said.

We ended up in the centre of the stalls with 3 empty rows in front of us.  How is that for having an absolutely unrestricted  view of the stage.

I spent a lot of time looking at the costuming again, catching lines that were thrown away on me before, but now added depth to the play, watching the singing and dancing skills of the new Elphaba and Glinda.  I saw the best scarecrow/empty head-ed prince ever.  His legs were still weak and wobbly when he played out his final scene and walked into the wood.  Fantastic, especially after watching the equally amazing performance of the scarecrow in the original version the day before.

The boys needed a debriefing at the intermission, having just seen Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of the The Wizard of Oz.  Who is good?  Who is bad?  Who is only pretending to be good, but is bad?  Who is bad but pretending to be good? Will evil triumph over good?

Theatre at its best!

More Baltic Cruise - Last Day on Board

We stayed up late last night to go under the long bridge again, the one that takes people from Denmark to Denmark, but in reality takes them to another country more quickly.  There was little wind on deck.  It was late, but still light enough to see the jagged silhoutte of the land in the distance, the lights of half-tons as they rolled across the bridge, and the concrete pylons flashed back to the water, the glare from the splotlights that were on them.

Wyona and I had been soaked on our first trip under that bridge.  The rain was falling, and try as we might (by standing on deck chairs under overhang of the floor above) all of the passengers were wet.  The Irish were singing songs we didn’t know and the Brits joining in.  They asked us for a Canadian song to sing.  I couldn’t think of one off hand … until I remembered teaching new ones to Mary’s kids this winter when I stayed with them.  Of course – “Four Strong Winds” – hard to get more Canadian than that and all of them knew the song.  There was even part singing, thanks to Wyona.

I walked the same deck we were standing on that night, but in the morning and not with any impulse to drive my steps forward. A long morning walk.  I stopped to look over the starboard side at the islands as they passed by.  Then I stood on the bow to see if I could find a way to turn my back to the wind so that I could both see ahead and backward and not be windblown. 

A small sign on the side of the ship reminded me that that six laps around the track make a mile and I count the first six, then the next six, but on each way around, when I pass a ship that says Goteborg on its prow I wonder if I have done a couple of loops without counting, for I am busy watching the seagulls pick up fish that the engine of the ship has churned to the top of the water.

A thirteen story building proudly holds a sign that says Volvo.  Containers full of cars line the dock, as well as about 120 Volvo’s lined up in groups of 20 on the dock.  The Volvo museum is a five minute walk from the gang plank.  “Who would want to see a museum full of old cars,” Wyona and I hear a woman complain to her husband on her return from the museum.”And we didn’t need to hire a bus or have a tour guide.  It was right across the street,” she went on to say.

Wyona and I didn’t leave the ship that day for we were so tired.

“Did you stay on your beds and rest?”, Bonnie Wyora asked.

Heavens no!   

That is not what we do when we are tired. The ship was empty since so many people had taken tours. Wyona and I went from floor to floor, lingering to look at the art work on the walls where the stairs turn on each flight and read the accompanying artist’s statements.  We never get a chance to do that when people are walking up and down the stairs, obstructing our view. 

We rode the glass elevator, looking at the water-fall installations that are 6 stories high.

We tried the line-dance class and then came back to the cabin to practise the steps we had learned.  I write down the moves, but Wyona makes me put down the pencil and practise.  Sachet, sachet, heel, heel, toe toe, heel-toe-stomp-stomp, heel-toe-stomp-stomp and that is where I get mixed up.  Just before grape-vine to the left starts. for we have switched legs. 

I practise at 20 minute intervals, dropping the packing we are starting to do and work again on heel-toe-stomp-stomp. 

We are going to teach this to our grandchildren, at least those we can manage to corral, for it will be a lot of fun at the next wedding, or baptism, or seasonal holiday celebration. 

The money that is being sorted out between us has to go in different envelopes for this is the last day to use any of that currency: the euros, the pounds, the Canadian dollars, and then we sort out the train tickets back from Harwich to London and the plane tickets to go back home. 

We have lunch in the Windjammer, a buffet style restaurant.  I take along my handout from the Bridge Lesson about “Defensive Signalling”, still excited to find that there are other ways to tell one’s partner the contents of my hand, other than by humming, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

We are doing two on-board-ship shows tonight.  The same show really, catching MoTown, not once but twice.  Last night was a Tango Duo: Luciano & Rocio.  Our friends at dinner aren’t really fans of dance, saying it was good, but a little two much Argentinian tango.  One tango dance would have been enough they said, though they had no idea what they wanted to see on the rest of the programme.  Of course that made me laugh.  The programme was billed as Argentinean Tango.  They didn’t like the night before, either:  ABBA Night.  Their complaint about that was there were only 5 ABBA songs.  

Too much tango.  Not enough ABBA.  I don’t care either way because I am enjoying everything.

Now, that was a restful day.

The Pearl Fishers

Greg, Wyona and I went to Camden today, not for shopping, but for one last meal at the fast food fish and chip spot that overlooks the street where we think we see a slice of life of the real London we love. People walk by with their baby strollers, their hair spiked in spokes circumnavigating their head, their lugging their packages from shopping, and workers carrying their sandwich boards that advertize restaurants or body piercings.

We sat there making tributes to the times we have had in London with everyone at that restaurant, toasting those times with our soft drinks.

Bizet’s Pearl Fishers was on at the Coliseum tonight, so Wyona and I hopped the tube for Charing Cross to get in the line-up for concession tickets. We noticed at the door that one of the leads would not be doing his part tonight. An actor would be playing his part and a singer would be singing from the side of the stage. As well, the prima donna would not be there. But we are saying good-bye to London and didn’t need a perfect performance, but only a near perfect one.

And we did have a perfect second act.

On the way to the performance, Greg looked at our tickets and informed Wyona that the opera started at 6:30 pm and not at 7:30 pm, the timeline we were on. We arrived at the theatre doors just in time for the intermission, so we stood at the bar and watched the costuming of the theatre goers as they came out of the auditorium to enjoy their interval drinks.

“Oh, it looks like you got here for the second act,” said the theatre patrons to the left of my seat who had parked their purses and coats where I was to sit. “Do you know the bad news? The very bad news.”

“Yes, I heard about the substitutions for tonight’s performance,” I replied.

“Very bad news,” he said again.

How bad can the news be?”, I thought. 

I looked at the box seats full of people eating their crustless cucumber sandwiches and drinking their wine. 

Out of a niche near the top of the ceiling I looked at the 3 golden lions pulling a chariot and that seemed to be leaping through the wall and into the auditorium. The orchestra was warming up and I could hear the drum being tuned and an oboe doing scales going up and then coming down.

Greg and Wyona burst into laughter in the rotunda as he had opened a bottle of sparkling water for her. Sparkling means the liquid bubbles come out of the bottle as though a cork had been popped on champagne on every occasion that he opens one of those bottles for us. They were both wet.

The "bad news" of being at the opera wasn't feeling all that bad to me.

If you pay half price for your tickets, but you only see half of the opera, no loss.

We stopped at Waitrose for some fig boursin, some caprice de dieu, some gouda, some brie and ate in in Parisian style when we got home. 

A lovely second to the last day in London.

To be really truthful, a few things have gone wrong. I took a picture of my new fushia hat, my camera sizzled, the flash did not go off and I could smell burning. Neither of the toilets work in the apartment. One is being fixed professionally, which in London means that it takes men from 3 or 4 unions to coordinate getting all of the parts and then doing the service on it. The other toilet needs a full time service agent to flush it 10 times between each use. So ... missing the first half of the opera doesn't seem like all that much going wrong. 

Wyona says that we can dissolve our troubles by getting some money out of the bank and going to shop at Petticoat Lane tomorrow.

Arta

London - The Fantasticks

Wyona and I went to Wicked Monday night. Everything went wrong. Wyona attempted, but didn’t get a nap before we left for the show. She put her umbrella on the seat of bus and didn’t pick it up when we transferred. She wanted to see the new lead for Fiorello in the show, but the understudy was playing the part.

Still, we agreed, -- a good show even though so much had gone wrong. Neither of us have tired of seeing the costumes, hearing the lyrics, watching the dancing or figuring out the nuances of the plots. And Wyona reminded me today that the new Elphaba is absolutely the best ever. Electrifying. When she is on stage and Glinda plays off of her character, we are seeing a heightened "blonde" in action -- two brilliant actors / singers / dancers at work. I don't know how to describe this except to say that when they are on stage together my own body feels paralyzed by the action, as though I can hardly breathe and I don't dare try to move a muscle.

The Fantasticks.

I am the one who wanted to see this show, even though it is still in previews. They haven’t had their press night, yet. I wanted to see musical theatre that originally ran in an off-Broadway production for 42 years. That was the same reason I wanted to see Hair – to take a look at what was happen in those years when musical theatre was not available in my community.

There were 10 cheaper seats in the show, only £20, but that patrons sits right on the stage and play the part of the audience during. When the lady in the seat next to us told us that, I turned I told her that we paid senior’s prices: £25 and that I was very happy to pay the extra five to have a seat on the floor of the theatre rather than sit in a spot where everyone could see me for the duration of the show.

She agreed. Concessions was good for us.

I was surprised to hear the lyrics of the first song:

Try to remember the kind of SeptemberF
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

That tune was familiar to me.

The singer, El Greco / narrator / black-caped bandit played with the vowels of every word, elongating them at every chance The pauses between words, the lingering between lines – all of that so beautiful in the first few minutes after the curtain went up.

Funny how some of the stage lyrics became songs I know, though I have never seen original productions.

I went to the play cold – no reading on the internet. Right from the get-go the dramatic apparatus that charms theatre goers was up front. Who wouldn’t love a play that had a little bit of Pyramus and Thisbee, a little bit of Romeo and Juliet, a little bit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a little bit of Donizetti's L’Elisir d'Amore, running through it. In the past two months, some of those plays have been refreshed for me.

So what fun was that to see threads of them running through that musical written back in the 1960's.

There was even a little bit of Waiting for Godot, between two old classical actors, helping to fake an abduction. On reflection, Waiting for Godot was hard to see – it reminded me that age is descending or at the very least winding its way out on a wonderfully interesting path for me. Last night troubles that come with old age were comic, campy and outlandish. Wyona and I giggled with equal glee.

The man next to me was grumbling when the first act was over -- wondering what it was that gave this show any charm. His grumbling gave me a clue as to why he was there alone, instead of with a partner. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t figure out how he had missed all of that fun going on for us.

One good thing about the day the day for us – we didn’t loose any more umbrella, we weren’t disappointed in about not seeing the actors we had come to see, and we were rested enough to enjoy the matinee.

Three cheers for the Fantasticks.

This morning Wyona said she is going to find the score for the song, “Plant a Radish”. The lyrics point out how a radish seed becomes a radish, how a turnip seed becomes a turnip, but that it is hard to know about planting children.

But if your issue
Doesn't kiss you,
Then I wish you luck.
For once you've planted children,
You're absolutely stuck!
Every turnip green!
Every kidney bean!
Every plant grows according to the plot!
While with progeny,
It's hodge-podgenee.
For as soon as you think you know what kind you've got,
It's what they're not!

No question why two sisters who have 15 children between them would have been enjoying the lyrics from The Fantasticks.

Love to the hodg-podgenee,

Arta

London – Carmen in Trafalgar Square

“I am so excited, I can hardly stand it,” said the woman who sat next to be on the double deck bus that was bringing Wyona and me back to Trafalgar square this afternoon. “My friend has an extra ticket to Carmen at Covent Garden and those tickets are over £100 each. I was going to watch it free in Trafalgar Square tonight and now I get to go to the real thing."

What!

Just then Wyona whacked me on the shoulder, which means we are headed off of the bus. We crossed the street, I said to her, ``Let`s just see if the Square is set up for an opera tonight.``

I was close to trembling I was so happy when I saw the big screen and people beginning to gather on the benches and steps.

"I am not going to stay. I have too much to do at home,`" said Wyona, packing an umbrella, 2 extra scarves, her black jacket, 2 bottles of water, a zip-lock back full of treacle toffees and 2 bananas into her purple treat bag for me. Then she offered to go home and bring me back a blanket and a stool.

"I am going to be fine," I said.

"If Tonia were here, she would be staying," said Wyona as she left.

Gareth Malone was doing some crowd warm-up. "There are 7,000 people here and we are going to be the nation`s largest instant choir, dong a Summer Big Screen Carmen Sing-Along." he said, doing body warm-ups, vocal warm-ups and teaching the crowd the lyrics and even working on their diction and stage presence. 

Toreador, make ready. Toreador. Toreador.
And think on her, on her, who all can see
On a dark-eyed lady,
And that love waits for thee, Toreador,
Love waits, love waits for thee.

I was laughing so hard, for he had thousands of people whipping imaginary capes over their heads to the first line, and having their hands make the curves that illustrate a beautiful lady with the third line.

The screen was at the base of Nelson`s statue. I looked at the curve of architecture of Canada house, the same curve in the Canadian Pacific Building. I watched the foreign flags floating in the breeze, flags from all of the embassies at the Square: U.S.A., Canada, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, and the Netherlands.

TV cameras were zooming in and out over the square, focusing on the mermaids and dolphins who are usually in the middle of spraying water. Those cameras were not to be outdone by pigeons making equally swooping motions, just clearing the heads of the spectators in front of me as the birds rose from the floor of the square to lift themselves to the top of the National Gallery.

I was in the second row of seats. A group of five in front of me had brought their evening meal and were sharing chicken legs, and mini-jam tarts, as well as shortbread and lemon zingers, passing along napkins and Tupperware containers.

The usual noises were around the square: the clock from St. Martin`s-in-the-Fields ringing on the hour and on the half hour, the sound of the sirens of ambulances and the two-toned daa-hee of police cars, at one point even the sound of a 3 gun salute going off somewhere near the Thames. All of those sounded mixed in with the big sound of the opera being broadcast through the square.

As the night began to fall, the pinks and the reds of the sunset were reflected in the clouds to the south. Soon the pale blues and greys of the sky began to deepen into deep night. As the darkness fell, the street lights from the Strand became brighter, their glow casting a long reflections on the still water of the pools at the bases of the statues in the square. The face of the clock in the tower was bright now, the black Roman numerals marking how the time was passing by. 

At the beginning of the second act, when the scene opens with the smugglers surrounding the ship in the water, I could feel the night moisture of the Thames reaching Trafalgar Square. The wind was blowing my hair and I looked around me at the neck scarves rippling in the breeze. People, who had turned their collars up as protection against the wind, now donned their fedoras or baseball caps to keep the chill of the wind from their necks and heads.

"I am not clapping anymore. The performers can`t hear it," intoned the woman who had brought the big lunch. The rest of the crowd did not hold her opinion. They clapped and cheered as loudly as those who were sitting in the Covent Garden Opera House, a few blocks away, where the curtain went down.

Fourteen squares and piazzas across England, Scotland and Wales had participated in this initiative for free ballet and opera, live from the Royal Opera House to the big screens around the UK.

I had a choice when the party was over – take the bus to New Cavendish or walked back up around Piccadilly Circus, enjoy the laughter of the late night revellers along Regent Street and then slip home. The walk was a good time to think on today’s thrill – my second time hearing Carmen this year.

Love,

Arta

Durham Cathedral

I could not get any good pictures today. Perhaps it was the clouds. As well I remember now, reading in the guide book, that this part of the country is not like the tidy lanes and well-trimmed hedges of other parts of the land. 
No careful stone fences that separate the fields here. 

There is still a wildness here in north eastern England. 

The pictures do show at least that.

“I regret not being able to come with you tomorrow morning,” said Wyona last night.
I am going to see the famous Norman Romanesque architecture of the Durham Cathedral, today, and I am travelling on my own. Oh, I am not really on my own, for I have Wyona’s shadow beside me and am now trying to do all of the planning she does for me, on my own.

“How do you read the train schedule to tell which platform I should take the train to Oxford,” I said to the woman to the left of me at King’s Cross Station. All I could see on the whole board was dashes.

“When the dash you can see on the electronic board turns to a numeral, you will know that is the platform number where you should go,” she responded.

I waited watching the commuters come off of other trains. Then I idly admired the hair-do of the woman to the other side of me. When the change came to the board both women both turned to me and said, “Now that is your platform – number 5. Hurry. Follow the others.”
“Oh no,” I said. “I was only practising reading the schedule. I am so excited to go on my trip that I got to King’s Cross Railroad Station early. My train doesn’t leave for an hour.”
Now on the train, I see the other passengers on the train have their computers in front of them, and are multi-tasking by taking conferences calls on their phones, as well as conversing with the business companies to the side of them. I heard the four-note musical sound that signals computers going on all over the coach as people settled in. 
I am new to this. 

I ordered the complimentary orange juice and Sweet Fruit and Nut Soft Cookie. I didn’t know what to choose in the way of cookies since I couldn’t understand the accent, the English accent of all things, of the choices before me. 

I watched while the man next to me ordered toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and a sausage, trying to get a handle on the sound of the words. 

“That will be £12 pounds,” she said.  A traditional English breakfast. 

I am going to have Greg show me how to open the Harrogate Spa Sparkling Spring Water when I get home. I opened Wyona’s on the last train and was sprayed all over. Now the same thing happened to me this morning.

I am reading Tonia’s Lonely Planet Great Britain as the scenery roles by me, so that I will know what to look at in Durham Castle. A 12th century wall painting of St Cuthbert. 

I had no idea where to go today. I told Wyona that I was going to get on the posh East Coast Rail and ride north as far as I could for 6 hours and then ride back, forgetting that I get to go hear Shakespeare in the Regent’s Park Outdoor Theatre tonight. So I changed the timing of the ride so that I could go north and be back in time for Arthur Miller's The Crucible. 

Since I had that extra hour at the train station this morning I practised changing the timing of the reservation of my ticket, giving myself another hour in the cathedral before I come home.

“Yes,” you can do it, “said the ticket agent, “but it will be expensive. Give me your ticket.”
I handed over the Britrail pass.

“No charge,” he said.

Wyona and Glen are the ones who were looking for train travel originally, trying to figure out if it is more expensive to rent a car or go by train. They saw an option for the Britrail pass that has to be purchased when you are in Canada. That choice fell through for them, but Wyona and I decided to order our passes. I was absolutely disappointed when the tickets came. There was no large map, no literature, no schedule – just a ticket for 16 days of consecutive travel through England, Scotland and Wales. 

At night, Wyona goes to the British railroad url and creates a schedule that connect trains for us, so far to the south west and then the east of England. 

I am less skilled today. I am taking a train, riding it one way north and then riding it back, south. 

In fact today, I must do a little research in a few minutes or I am not going to know when to get off of this train. The book I purchased said to ask the train guard any question and you will probably an answer to your question plus a 40 minute lecture on the history of the area you are in.

Greg informed me that 20 companies run the trains in Britain and that you have to make connections between the companies at some point, if you really want to get to a destination that is serviced by connecting companies.

I couldn’t be having a better holiday. I am in a train. I have a travel book by my side. My laptop is on the table in front of me. My camera is by my side. I can snap pictures out the window with the camera from my retirement. Even better, I am now moving from being an beginner with that camera to the intermediate level. Well, I should put a rider on that. When I went to the National Portrait Gallery and I visited their photography bookshop. At that moment I decided that there is no use taking another picture – that they have all been taken in some shape and form and publish. And further I had that wash of fear of how hard it is going to be to get really good at anything when I am a beginner at it.

Be that as it may, today someone is serving me complimentary orange juice and biscuits and I am about to go into Durham Cathedral. 

How cool is that! 

The day before we were to begin this trip, Wyona asked me if we just shouldn’t cancel our trip before it began and getting 80% of our money back.

That would have been a mistake for we would have just spent it on scarves.

Arta

London Chinatown and The Elixir of Love

We just came back from buying tickets for Elixir of Love at the Colesium. I was remarking to Wyona that we were in the line-up at 4:30 and it was 5:30 when we walked back in the door. What I was thinking about is that first you have to scan the London Theatre Guides to see what is playing from drama, theatre, musicals. Then find out who can go on which day. Next make the trip to the theatre that morning of to get discounted seats, or try to pick some up at Leicester Square. Add to that, meeting there if you have to be there in person to get the cheaper seats.

The woman at the ticket wicket explained to us that she needs ID. Wyona and I were complimented that the woman think we looked that old. She explained that there are many concessions: those over 65; those who belong to the Actor’s Guild; students; the unemployed. How does a person have ID to show they are unemployed, Wyona asked. The woman said you get a card saying you are in that category.

Being unemployed and being able to pay £35 for a ticket to the opera seem like mutually exclusive propositions to me. For The Elixir of Love, Wyona and Greg got tickets in the dress circle. I was in the stalls – A22. How close do you think I was to the conductor? I could see his profile for the whole concert, the movement in his hands, the expressions on his face, his crouching, leaning, weaving, mouthing of the words. When I got home, I demo-ed some of the moves for Wyona and Greg for they were in the balcony. Yes, said Greg, I was watching the conductor as well.

“You have my husband’s seat,” said the older woman in a seat next to me. “I turned it in the day before last when I could see he couldn’t come. His mother is sick. Or says she is.”

“Too bad. How old is she?”

“Ninety-four.”

“I hope she has enjoyed many such concerts as these in her lifetime.” What else was there for me to say?

“Oh no! She would never come here. Thinks it is a complete waste of time and money.”

The music started. The curtain went up. The production was first done in Stockholm, created for their national orchestra. Rossini’s Elixir of Love, modernized. The story line is essentially the same but the text now in English; the setting 1950’s Texas; the costuming included hair rollers for the women and jean overalls for the men; the heroine’s wig was reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s blonde coiffure; the charlatan actually uses phrases from Elvis Presley’s songs and mimes his hip gyrations and foot work. The seargant chews gum when he isn’t signing. His jaw was still going at the end of concernt bows. 

I couldn’t not stop laughing at all of this, though no one else on my row appeared to find it amusing. “That’s the British for you,” I thought. However the audience did warm up to other humour. 

In the second act when scene was on the outside of the restaurant and the bathroom stalls were visible, a woman stood in the line-up to the toilets, crossing her legs and doing a dance as she waited her turn for the bathroom. After the first verse of a song by the chorus, the sound of a toilet rushing brought ripples of laughter. After the second verse, the same flush, and more laughter. By the time the third flush was heard, the audience was warmed up to the potty humour and loved the fact that the woman came out of the restrooms with her dress tucked up in her pantyhose at the back. Pointless lavatory sequence. That is what the reviewer called it. I am with the reviewer on that one.

Not fair to tell all of this, and not say the voices soared and the tenor’s love song brought a quiet hush to the house – a nice beginning for a Valentine weekend.

Love,

Arta