Foreign Languages

Saturday morning, I woke as usual and wandered out the door to the bus stop just down the street from the hotel - usually, I wait either alone or with the usual silent grouping of locals who would rather die than make eye contact with a stranger. This morning, however, it was only myself and a woman who walked up carrying a map and asked, "Parlez-vous francais?" 

Oh, I know my former French teachers Madame Perkins and Beauclair must've been smiling somewhere, as I replied back, "Un peu" and we began a half-hour conversation of, I'm sure, very mangled French and English - nonetheless, I was able to discover that she was trying to find her way to Holland Park - as this particular bus stop didn't go to Holland Park and I was "en vacance" from "les Etas-Unis", I was understandably not a lot of help, but I did let her know that the bus we were at would take her to Shepherd's Bush and the one across the street to High Street Kensington, from which she could either catch the tube to Holland Park or, I was sure, catch a bus. From there, we discovered that she was visiting her daughter, who was staying at the same hotel I was - even if I wasn't sure that "ma fille" was daughter, I'd know from the fact that the first question she asked about the hotel was about "securitie" :) ("Tres bien", I assured her) We talked about our favourite tube lines (we both laughed at the Circle line, because neither of us knew the word for "bumpy", so we just mimed bouncing up and down), commiserated about London weather, and she bid me au revoir when my bus arrived (she decided to go to High Street). I found myself thinking in French for the rest of the tube journey in to London. 

I arrived at the theatre, amused to no end that I'd be spending the day in a theatre again, running two shows, and amused myself by thinking of the different languages just used between film and theatre folk (or, for that matter, the much wider gulch between the costume students and fine art students). In all the discussions and group tutorials I've had throughout this course, I kept finding myself getting more and more frustrated with this obsession of "art" as, well, almost as deity amongst the fine artists. They work out their art with fear and trembling, worrying whether this particular line or color is just right, if this really evokes the right feeling in the audience, whether what they are doing is really "art" (a question I ask myself, for a different reason - especially amongst performance artists - yikes). As the course went on, I found myself having to revert to a new vocabulary; phrases like "organic processes" which we make fun of in theatre. Upon returning to a theatre environment, I was able to give a sigh of relief, being back amongst people who... well, I was going to put "don't take this art seriously", but that's not true. Every single person in the theatre, from the costume and wardrobe department, to sets, to lights, to sound, to directing and managing, to the actors, to the person handing out programs know that there's something very intangible about the theatre - at its heart, it is not commercial, it is not base, it is a very ethereal, spiritual action 

- it is a large scale lie, but not one meant to hurt, but to heal - the audience and the actors enter into a space wherein - completely out of either's control - a truth is transmitted from heart to heart through the use of storytelling - one of the oldest and most strangely knowable and unknowable forces in the world. Fine art does the same - the transmution of ideas through color or light or texture - but theatre does so with human beings - with real/false life happening right before the audience's eyes. 

Theatre and Fine Art are so absolutely similar, yet Fine Artists are, after all, the ones stereotypically running around in a beret and arrogantly full of themselves, while theatre artists are the ones running around backstage giving each other wedgies or laughing at American Idol between scenes. We all know the supreme power of what we're working on and respect that, but we don't get so caught up in it to forget to actually *live* in the meanwhile, and have a bit of fun while doing so! :)

Okay, enough ranting about fine arts. :) The point being, I spent the day racing about, helping soldiers turn into farmers, whores into Inn customers, listening to the girls' gossip about other's in the cast (though, obviously, the dresser's code says that I will take those secrets to the grave), taking breaks upstairs and watching the EuroVision contestants, and just generally having a great time hanging out with some fun, crazy folks - all the while, the audience was engaged in the story - laughing, crying, and taking something from it to influence their lives. (In the pathway I was on, I stand backstage to help Jackie go from the Priest's sister at dinnertime into her nightgown and shawl [for when Valjean is brought back the next morning] - although the Priest, in the story, is the quintessential Good Man, pure and blameless and full of grace, Jackie would always come off laughing - the actor playing the priest would whisper something crude to her every night as she was coming off stage to try to get her to laugh)

After the last show, I helped sort laundry, then changed into a cute top and went out salsa dancing with Claire - the club was absolutely *packed* full of people, with music loud enough that your heart starts switching over to the beat of the music. I grabbed a glass of red wine from the bar, then went out into the absolute fray - I'd never been before, but salsa is actually quite easy if you have a good partner and know how to follow - and there were some *really* good dancers/leaders there. I stuck around for about two hours, until the last guy I had been dancing with was getting quite clingy and I realized that, with the tube shut down for the night, it was going to be a long couple of bus rides back to Kensington. Claire walked me to the bus stop headed for Victoria, then stuck around having a fag (hee) while we talked about London, London theatre, etc - she wrote down my last day of classes in September in her date book, and told me that she'd keep her ear to the ground for me - and that I could stay with her anytime I came back to London. A group of guys came by, saying that they were working for some company in - Sweden? Norway? who knows, I was still rather buzzed at that point - and were instructed to get artsy photos of local London sights with local London people for advertising - we pointed out that she was from Malaysia and I from the states, but "oh, that's fine". Eh, whatever. They were probably just kids out getting pictures, but if we randomly show up in major advertising somewhere Nordic, that's what it's from. :)

I caught the train to Victoria, but - upon arriving - only found the bus stop to Shepherd's Bush after much wandering, discovered that there was only one night bus headed there and - frankly - was tired, buzzed, very cold (all the sweat was now just felt like cold water all over), and really, really needed to pee. :) I hailed a cab, which ended up being driven by an absolutely adorable old man, who chatted with me about Seattle, costuming, vintage clothing, and London theatre. He knocked five quid off the fare, since it ended up being more than he had originally quoted at Victoria, and I wandered up to my room where I headed straight to bed and slept fantastically.