Bad American accents, Fairy tale Shakespeare

A Streetcar Named Desire with Rachel Weisz was FANTASTIC!! She was so beautiful and talented and inspiring! The show was in this tiny theatre called the Donmar Warehouse, and 15 people got up at 5:30 am in order to get tickets!! It was a really fun bonding experience, but kind of messed up my sleep schedule for the rest of the weekend. Also, the actress playing Stella (Ruth Wilson) was fantastic. Stanley had a pretty bad American southern accent, but it wasn't too bad. At one point he got really angry and started slipping into a British accent, but overall the actors handled the accents pretty well.

On Monday, BADA went to the National Theatre to see All's Well that Ends Well, wich was very good as well. I'd never seen the play or read it, but I really enjoyed this interpretation. They made it very fairy tale like, with castles, shadows, woods, crazy lighting, and Tim Burton-like effects. It was a really fun show, and the actors delivered their lines so beautifully!

Classes this week were great! We are rehearsing The Relapse by John Vanbrugh in High Comedy, and Romeo & Juliet in Acting Shakespeare (I am Juliet--hooray)! We read and discussed 'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford in Theatre History, which was surprisingly a good play. It's all about a brother who is in love with his sister, and trying to handle these feelings, but just ends up lusting after her. In Modern Physical, we did this exercise in which we had to confess our love to someone in the class in 7 different layers of tension, meaning moving through different emotional states. It was really intense!!!! We also sang a lot of songs, and played games where we had to speak (or do our best imitation) in other languages, like German, Spanish, Japanese, and French. We have this one game, "the frog game," which is so much fun, and I won the round! You basically start of clapping and snapping and the first person says "one frog," second person says, "two eyes," then "four legs," then "kir-plunk." Then "two frogs," "four eyes," "eight legs," "kir-plunk," "kir-plunk." I was so excited to win the round! Voice class has been really amazing too. We have done a lot of work on relaxation and breathing, and learning the mechanics of the throat and voice. In Movement, we did this game where you think of a person in the group, and then everyone in the group asks you a question (such as, "If this person were an animal, what would they be?" or "If this person were a section of the newspaper, which would they be?," or like what kind of shoe, ice cream flavor, musical instrument, etc.). Then you have to guess who it is. Surprisingly, it made a lot of sense when you finally figured out who it was.

So classes are going well, but the work is piling up! Also, things in our apartment are much better. They repaired our washing machine finally, and so I could do laundry! I also cooked a lot this week: we made delicious chicken and leeks, and I made a chicken caesar salad.

I am going to Bath on Sunday with Isa, Meghan, Ashley, and Katie, and I am super excited! We are also planning on going to Greece and Italy for the mid-term break. So many things to do, so little time!