Today, I did not rise when my alarm sounded off at seven-thirty, mostly because I have not done laundry since our arrival in England and I am tired of putting on previously worn shirts, pants, even undergarments every morning. As you are well aware, I had planned on doing the laundry last night, but when I approached the front-desk person, Tamlyn, she coldly explained (1) that laundry to be finished by eleven o' clock and (2) that there was a waiting list. I probably should have inquired about how many people were already on the list and roughly how long the machines take to clean one's clothes, but I sensed that Tamlyn did not care much for me or about my grimy clothes, and so I thanked her for her assistance and left.
Anyway, I rose finally around eight forty-five, showered, put on a yellow polo shirt and khaki shorts, and then spent the next hour checking my e-mail and trawling the Internet. I did not bother with hurrying downstairs for breakfast; I do not ordinarily eat breakfast at home and, what's more, I am growing tired with what the Arran House offers us every morning. I realise, of course, that it is pretty stupid of me to refuse a free meal, but I try to march to the drumbeat I hear in my head, not the cadence that sounds in everyone else's.
We had a classroom session today, so a little before ten o' clock, I trudged down to the breakfast room, my pen, notebook paper, and textbooks in hand, and took a seat between Dan and Tristan. For only my second time back in the classroom environment since last May, I enjoyed it well enough; our discussion centered on a trio of plays we saw last week--Let There Be Love, Her Naked Skin by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, and William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. Nearly everyone in class spoke, which was really impressive in my eyes because in almost every class I have attended at Dickinson, that has not been the case. Based on the comments that everyone made, I surmise that Let There Be Love was the favourite, if only by the slightest margin. Personally, I was most partial to Timon of Athens--and I think that if everyone in the group considered matters objectively, they would agree with me. But after standing for three hours on a concrete slab trying to follow a play written approximately four hundred years ago, can you really blame them if they have abandoned their judgment?
If I may, one observation about the three plays. In the staging of all three productions, I noticed that the directors utilised elements which made me think that they were suited more for the cinema than the playhouse:
- In Timon of Athens, the director had suspended an enormous black net over the standing area in front of the stage; there were three or four holes in the net from which the various participants in the play, dressed rather ominously as vultures, would descend on to the stage or into the audience through the use of rubber cords. Just imagine the digital effects.
- In Her Naked Skin, much of the play's action occurred in a large metal cage that was divided into four or five "prison cells," complete with beds, dressers, and basins; the whole structure was, in turn, placed on top of a special platform, which the director could have rotated whenever he or she wished the audience to observe the action of the play from a different "camera angle," so to speak.
- Finally in Let There Be Love, in the midst of the show's climax, the director incorporated something of a "dream sequence" in which Alfred Maurice danced with Maria to the soft notes of Nat King Cole before the curtain fell. Think of every sentimental romantic film you have ever seen. Such sequences are pretty much a staple of the genre.
At one point when we were discussing the staging of each play, I wanted to share this revelation, because honestly, I think it very interesting--worthy of a minute or two of discussion at least. Sadly, Professor Rudalevige did not call on me. Oh, well--I had already spoken up more than a few times, so I think that he was trying to keep me from overwhelming everyone else. Not that I am everyone's superior in terms of intelligence. I am not. I just talk too much.
After we finished with class, I lounged around the room for a short while before heading to Hyde Park with a small party that included two of my roommates--Ben and Dwight--, Sara Verhalen, Meghan Blickman, Rob, Greg Smart, Annie Gibala, and Julieta Rabinovich. We had a wonderful time there; the designers and builders of British cities certainly seem to have a better sense of the importance of "green space" in an urban environment. (One-quarter of the land in London, in fact, is green space--that is, occupied by parks and forests, lakes, streams, and other simple delights of the natural world.) I love it. However, I will admit that I became a little uneasy when Rob decided that he was going to punch one of Hyde Park's many, many pidgeons, which apparently is one of his life's great ambitions. As much as I am certain that it has been a pastime for the human race since Adam and Eve, petty cruelty toward animals simply has no appeal for me.
We spent between thirty and forty-five minutes at the Park, and then Rob, Ben, Dwight, Greg, and I decided to head to the South Bank and visit the Imperial War Museum. As we told the others before we left them in the Park, we were going to do "manly" things. The exterior of the Museum was rather unimpressive since apparently, they are in the process of restoring the external facade. But inside--oh, the bittersweet founts of knowledge that were there! Many of the exhibits were so full of memorabilia from the sundry conflicts that the British fought in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries that you could not take everything in. If you felt particularly in some display, you might stare at it a moment or two, read a few of the informational placards, and then move on to the next exhibit. It was astonishing, and simultaneously, it was frightful and more than a little depressing since everything there was associated with armed conflict. Unlike a middle-aged father I observed there, I am not so foolish to say that war is never right or necessary, but it certainly is a tragedy whenever it occurs.
Though we had not seen more than three-quarters of the collection, we finished with the Imperial War Museum about fifteen minutes after five o' clock and headed north. It was something of a challenge trying to find Waterloo Station from the Museum, but we managed and arrived back at the Hotel around six o' clock. I ate dinner with Zach, Dwight, Ben, Greg, and Tristan, and it was absolutely delicious. Zach prepared the meal (with help from his trusted sous-chef Greg); it consisted of diced chicken breast, sliced peppers, onions, garlic, and a chicken sauce stirred fried with pasta. Delicious. And between the six of us, relatively cheap. Each person's share was less than two pounds, excluding drinks.
The remainder of the night was not too busy. Ben and I cleaned the dishes, and then Dwight, Ben, Greg, and I, along with Sarah Salisbury, Abby Reed, Sara Verhalen, Emma, and the girls in the Science Program, went to a cheap pub just off Tottenham Court Road. Its name was the Bricklayer Arms. Professor Rudalevige had told Rob and me about it about a week ago. It certainly did not disappoint, with a pint of beer going between one-pound-ninety and two-pounds-ten. Afterwards, a bunch of us paid a quick visit to Leicester Square before returning to the Arran House and crashing. Another great day.
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