The real work begins!

If ever I thought my affection for London was a fleeting memory of youthful entertainment I was completely wrong. This is my fourth trip to London and each and every time I find a new reason to fall in love with this ancient city. As a tourist I loved the age and history of the city. I was overwhelmed with the idea of buildings and monuments older than my own country. When I was in conservatory it was a love of new experiences and higher learning of my craft. There is no coddling in the British education system. If you are wrong they will let you know and the experience was refreshing. Good, great! Let me move on and learn from this mistake! As a graduate I returned and fell in love with the independence and anonymity of being an ex-pat, at least for 6 months;-). I explored museums, worked in a museum- I met challenges living in a foreign country with odd neighbors and a different culture. I had Sunday dinner with friends and strangers. I grew up a bit.

On my fourth visit, a full decade after my first, I return to a familiar and yet very changing place. The historic monuments and dry British humor remains and the Southbank is transformed from a shady territory to a center for culture. This time I find a renewed excitement in studying acting and directing. I asked myself today if I ever had as much fun acting as I did studying acting… I am sure I have!- But there is something so satisfying with experience leading to response; experimenting; allowing someone else to do the teaching. A classmate refers to herself as a “sponge.” This is a wonderful idea. My only concern is that the tutors keep telling is not to worry about taking pictures or notes and that we will revisit these places and ideas. I am not sure how much absorbance I have before I am totally saturated. We have 15 minute breaks twice daily and a lunch so I am furiously scribbling down thoughts and ideas from the sessions before… My muscle memory is kicking in and I am reformatting my brain to think creatively from a personal sense.

There is too much to touch on so I will mention highlights of today’s sessions. We began the day with introductions and Patrick Spotswood gave a quick talk about The Globe Theatre as an instrument of the play. Have you ever had someone verbalize an instinctual idea and suddenly had the “aha! I knew that but never articulate it” response? This was the case for me this morning. I was so excited to be in a discussion of theatre theory and concept. Collaboration is really one of the greatest tools of the artist and it felt exciting to be bouncing ideas off each other as professionals. Patrick began a discussion about the stage space being unlike the traditional theatre of our time and how that affected the work. The Globe stage is in the round (almost completely) and the thrust juts out into the audience. It is amazing being inside to feel how a theatre that can “seat” (including groundlings) upwards of 2000 people can feel so intimate. Patrick discussed the “Circle” of the Globe vs. the “Square” of our common proscenium and black box theatres. This is not a new concept to me but was brilliantly rehashed and speculated on in terms of Sam Wannamaker’s vision. Sam Wannamaker was the American actor/director who came to London to discover the only monument to The Globe was a plaque on the side of an overlooked building. He felt strongly that to study/discuss/enjoy/ and conceptualize Shakespeare- a national treasure- it was important to experience his work as one might of in his life time. Bach on the forte piano or Bach on the Sony synthesizer… same notes very different performance. The stage is another character, another instrument of the play and can act upon characters and audience alike.

The rest of the day was spent learning about the history of the Globe (both past and present) and the Globe Education Department. An interesting note, the Globe as we know it today opened 12 years ago (right before my first trip) however Sam Wannamaker and Patrick Spotswood together created the Globe Education Program over 20 years ago. In the afternoon we had our first session with Glynda MacDonald. Glynda is a movement tutor at the Globe and works with the actors on Alexander techniques (which she LITTERALLY wrote the book on) as well as breath and speech as it relates to the body, reflexes and Jungian archetypes. Needless to say she is quite accomplished and divine (in the literal sense!). In our first session we discussed “what we wanted” and went back to basics with cross pattern reflexes. Glynda inspires tremendous focus. One of her pearls of the day was emotion is truly e-motion. I love this! So often my students get bogged down with feeling they stop doing altogether on stage. Glynda’s exercises will really work for me; and as a previous student of Alexander Technique it feels good to return to the method. In the first five minutes I realized major issues with my 7 level exercise simply because I have neglected to release the jaw and the skull. Fabulous.

Alright its 12:37 am. To sleep, to rest…

Ps- I am already a day behind in writing. My apologies! I will try to catch up and post pictures!