Saturday, January 24, 2015

Oy

Well, good thing I didn't get too carried away. FA's Othello was visually stunning, full of exciting choreographic moments, and, as soon as they started talking, it was like :-(

Boring.

Granted, I am an unabashed Shakespeare nerd, so my bar is high and all, but when  people are speaking Shakespeare's text and I find myself longing for them to stop talking and go back to dancing, there may be a problem.

Still, a really exciting night of Shakespeare-inspired dance, with the unexpectedly GLORIOUS boon of running into the lovely director M. Graham Smith. He's on a brief hiatus from teaching in Barcelona and will return home to SF in February. We had a delightful drink trading stories and then took the tube together most of the way home. Serendipity never ceases to amaze me. 

Flash forward to this morning, Niall (my flatmate) made crazy Mexican-Benedict-Burrito-Bizarre Deliciousness and ran off to the football game (the one with the round ball) and I'm off to the Clapton library to whip my research paper into shape. I'm armed with a latte and a bear hat. Necessity of Co-Bodily Presence here I come. Watch out.
Not pictured: Swedish marzipan roll.
...
It's serious homework, people. Desperate times and all that.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Differences

I'm sitting in the Lyric Hammersmith, waiting for the show to start. Frantic Assembly's adaptation of Othello. For all you San Franciscans, the Lyric is like an intimate version of ACT. Still pretty epic tho. Check it:


The word on the street is that most of the show takes place on that billiard table. No joke.
Yes yes my photos are awful. but you get what I'm driving at.
So here's the thing:

It's a sold out house, packed with HS and College kids. On Friday night. 

They are abuzz with anticipation. 

To see Othello.
Sexy Othello. But still.

I got the absolute last seat available in the orchestra and spent £30, the most I've spent yet on a ticket here, but still less than half what I would spend to see a comparable cast, with comparable production values, in a comparable venue in the Bay Area.

I think London may know a thing or two we don't.

Here we go. Let's see how they do...