king lear

Water pounds the thrust stage in bullets. The rain falls from somewhere above the ceiling of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre, splashing exuberantly from skin and stage. Rivulets slipping from his grey hair, Lear stands alone: he shivers, hugs himself tightly--visibly struggling with every word of his storm soliloquy. He is lit from directly above, which creates weird light-play on every surrounding surface; with each small movement, hundreds of tiny water droplets--glowing gold from stage-lighting--fan around him. Jarring lights and the sound of thunder (combined with an incongruous electric zapping noise) occasionally punctuate the appearance of the Fool, who tears apart the already-minimalist set to reveal the industrial, metal-girder skeleton of the stage. A haunting, feral howl. Chaos. Lights down.


***


In last night's Royal Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear, for which we travelled by train to Stratford-upon-Avon, this haunting scene left us shivering alongside Lear at intermission. The show itself was gorgeous, with only a few negatives (the second half, perhaps too indulgent of Lear's crazy-speeches, dragged; Cordelia was only so-so) to mar our enjoyment.


 It made a lot of interesting choices: some characters' costumes looked positively medieval, particularly in the beginning, but they slowly meandered into modernity. By the last scene, most of the men were wearing World War I-style uniforms; instead of the big battle, the lights simply dropped and massive gunfire could be heard. Greg Hicks' now-famed performance of Lear was as brilliant as I've been hearing. Goneril and Regan were notably good as well: Regan had a red-lipped, gorgeous sort of vindictiveness about her, while Goneril was actually quite sympathetic: sad, infirm, failing. The set, with its ever-discordant jumble of the old and the new, added a lot to the show. The unpredictable lighting (a chandelier in this scene; sparking industrial halogen ceiling-fixtures that look like they could fall at any second in that one) kept the audience aware--Brecht-like?--of the show's artificiality, and the blocking made good use of the thrust stage. All in all, a successful performance.

We also got to look around Stratford itself for awhile. It's a cute little town on the river whose only claim to interest, of course, is good old Bill, whose home (pictured above) we visited excitedly. Consequently, every cafe and pub and shopping-centre and street name seems to have some relation to the Bard--and some of them are quite silly.

 Along the river, we stopped to muse at the statue of the man himself: he sits atop a high throne, and sculptural renderings of Prince Hal, Falstaff, Lady Macbeth, and Hamlet surround him in death as they did in life. 

In fact, I even got a little up-close-and-personal with Falstaff. My eyes are up here, buddy. 


All in all, Robby and Kelly and Megan and I--three of us in the English M.St programme, and one amateur enthusiast--had a lovely time in Stratford, and the show definitely lived up to its expectations. Hicks' Lear is not one to miss: students in and around Oxford, do yourself a favour and pick up a £5 ticket for this spectacular performance. 

matriculam universitatis

Last night we went to formal hall at New College, which is Brian's school (the photo is Mark, Olga, and me). The food was fantastic and the atmosphere was nice--it was so sweet of Brian to invite us! I'm going to look into when Regent's black-tie guest night is (I think this week, but maybe next) and see if the gang wants to come.

In other news, matriculation was today!

That's where we all dress up in our schoolgirl outfits (properly called sub-fusc) and gowns and march down to the exam schools to be formally let into the University. Oh, and along the way random tourists photograph us without our knowledge or consent, so it's kind of like being in a zoo. It was fun, however, and I love the tradition of it all--they've been matriculating for hundreds of years, and if it seems a little dusty and antiquated a tradition, that's because it is. Which is fantastic. Why is Celeste so tall?!


(Many of) the lovely ladies of the MCR, all dressed up in our sub-fusc and gowns!

traditions

Last night I went to my first formal hall. Basically, we all get to wear pretty dresses (and our postgrad gowns, which are extremely dorky-looking but in an endearing sort of way) and eat in the hall together: think Harry Potter. There are all sorts of rules: you can't talk about the paintings on the walls of past heads of the college--and no, I can't tell you why, because I wasn't allowed to ask!--and if you leave the hall for any reason during the meal you have to bow to the head table on both exiting and reentering. Anyway, the food was fantastic, and it was nice to see everyone all dressed up.

As our slightly less classy follow-up to formal hall, Regent's had its first bop of the year! A bop is a themed party with dancing and cheesy music and costumes. Our theme was "alphabet bop": come dressed as something starting with the first letter of your name.


Being lame--and not wanting to spend money--I came as "Colourful" (if you just did a double-take and said to yourself, wait a sec, colourful doesn't start with an H!, then you've missed the memo: I go by my  middle name here).

Many people's costumes were lamer than mine, especially the other postgrads'. However, Celeste's Cruella Deville happened to be fantastic, complete with black-and-white wig and vintage fur stole. Anyway, the bop was super fun, and I suppose constitutes another equally legitimate, albeit more recent, Oxfordian tradition.

Another tradition: rowing! In a fit of doing-things-I-wouldn't-normally-do, I signed up to be on the Regent's crew team with Celeste, Nitya, Charlotte, and Karith. I'm going to be awful--but hopefully, with the exception of Celeste who has rowed before, we all will. We have our first practice today, so I'll keep you posted. Unfortunately, I'm sort of sick right now, so I'll be extra-awful. Hurrah! But I figured, you can't come to Oxford and not try rowing at least once! Even if you're awful...right?

i have an address!

Last night we went out to Fire & Stone, which is a sweet pizza place in city centre (the photo is of me with the lovely Nitya, who is a member of the business school but finds time in her busy schedule to hang out with us Regents folk). F&S organizes the menu in a really cool way--it's by continent, and within continents are cities. Each city is the name of a pizza. I had the Melbourne, which involves sliced brie, roasted butternut squash, roasted red onions and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. Pretty much best pizza ever, and it was a LOT of food. And only four pounds. Yay Rowena and her coupons!

Oh, but the real subject of this post: my address. You should all send me letters and food and sweaters:

Room 327
25 Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JH
United Kingdom


Yes? Yes. Do it.

sincerest apologies: rambling meditation in place of photos

So, I've left my handy photo-uploader-doohickey (strangely, Chrome's spell-check recognises "doohickey" but not "uploader") in the luggage that I checked at the hostel, so unfortunately I seem to be unable to upload photos for a few days, unless I go down and get it. Which is a major hassle.

A pity, because I have a good photo of the group of us at the Eagle and Child. Ah well. Will upload in a few days! I promise! At any rate, the E&C was fun, and it was nice to talk to people from all over the world.

This next bit seems obvious, and I suppose this is the case at every university, but I've never felt it so strongly as here: it's just simply fascinating to hear people talk about what they love. No matter how boring I think economics is or how much I dislike philosophy (if you're reading this Mark, Brian or Sungwoo, sorry but it's true), I could listen to people who really and truly love those things talk about them all night long, because the honest and sincere love of something transforms it in every case.

Like I said, I've noticed this at Mercer. I could listen to Cameron talk about engineering or Corey about mathematics or Leeanne about photography or Abby about music no matter how little I know (or, in some cases, care) about such things. I think that most of y'all would be at least moderately interested in feminism and poetry when it comes from me, since it's clearly a realm of sincere interest. But that impulse, that magnetic attraction to any academic subject when a fellow conversationalist is head-over-heels in love with it, has never felt so strong as here, where people are just really good at what they study.

Oh bother. I'm getting all pretentious and snooty already, and I haven't been here a week. As Olga would say (there now, I've mentioned all four of you by name!), it's time for a good dose of pop-culture whoredom. Good thing there's a new Glee tomorrow, eh?