Day Seventeen: London to Cleveland - Transatlanticism

Photo: Cyberman on Leicester Square.

I don't like summing up. Summing up is for the book, the article or the play. A blog is life in motion, and trying to draw any grand conclusions at the end of a long journey is as pointless as trying to draw one at the end of any given day.

Often I do exactly this when composing a blog entry, and I generally find myself simply dropping the last paragraph before publishing.

"Publishing." That's funny. Getting paid is nice, but what the hell, we'll call it publishing.

Non-stop from London to Cleveland. That's my idea of luxury. Once we arrive at Hopkins, Toni will turn around and board a plane for Vermont. It is year two of her work at Goddard College and she has a week on campus in Plainfield, that leaves me alone with the kids until next Monday. Well, alone with Kelly, my parents, and anyone else who will help.

Yesterday was a frazzled attempt to bring things to an enjoyable close. I had floated the idea of getting half-price tix to take Z. to see Mary Poppins. While Henrik drove most everyone and our bags back to Battersea, Toni, Kelly and I took a way around Leisceter Square - which in the middle of a Saturday afternoon was an insane crush of tourists and opportunists. The lowest ticket price was £32. We called home and said the show was sold out before lingering around some bookstores.

Henrik made curry, and we had an amazing relaxed evening around the vicarage, drinking, talking, watching Monsters Inc. (Zelda just loves that movie.)

Yesterday morning I took a six o'clock run around Plymouth. Today I rose in London. Tomorrow I get up at dawn in Cleveland Heights, take the kids to school, and embark on an arts camp for disadvantaged Cleveland middle school students.

I could really have used a weekend before starting in on that.

Day Six: London to Lincoln - Bad Busker

Photo: Royal College of Physicians performance. Big big screen.

Yesterday started well enough, with a well-anticipated 5 mile run. Things quickly soured as the getting-out-the-door ritual was unfortunately stressful. I was exhausted (hmn, going to be at 1 am and waking the next morning at 6 for a five mile run witll do that) and highly anxious about the performance at the Royal College of Physicians. But parenthood took precedence and we took the children to Coram's Fields.

As if the stroll to the park wasn't already stoked with thoughts of anger and indequacy (a rocking chair? hello?) Toni informed me that Coram's Field - a lovely playground (one with a policeman at the gate, to keep anyone without children out) with expansive sandboxes for the toddlers (like Orson) a wide variety of climbing contraptions (for people like Zelda) and even game captains to lead older children in more advanced play - was formerly the site of the Foundling Hospital. The bad historical juju, coupled with the sight of my own children playing without a care in the world made something inside of me crumble and I just had to sit and stare.

We arrived at the RCP in plenty of time to set everything up - including a lovely, wooden rocking chair. I didn't want to get into it with anyone, I was about to collapse. I realized I hadn't had anything for lunch, so Kelly and I breezed into the crowded hall where the food was, avoiding eye contact with absolutely everyone, loaded up a small plate, snatching an apple, a hunk of cheese, and bunch of grapes, and escaping back to the little room to the side of the stage.

There was a couch, some chairs, a table. I ate and whined about my life as Kelly, dutiful as always, listened patiently, and then went out to get everything arranged on stage and in the booth.

A large painting, a portrait, of Edward VII hung on the wall. He looked like my Dad, except for the suit.

Photo: The panel discussion.

I had never been so unsure of myself before a performance. And this wasn't even such an unusaul event, but I was so shaken, exhausted, overwhelmed and unhappy, I had no idea how I was going to be able to do this. Toni came backstage and we talked. I just resigned myself to my fate, the show would go on, of course. I just hoped it wasn't terribly awful.

The music started, Calvin's Theme, if you will (check my "Profile," it's there) and I stepped out and did something I never did before. The lights were on full, and I took my time walking to my place in the center of the stage. I usually just keep my eye on that spot, move to it, and look at my hands. This day I looked at everything. The table, the phone, the stepladder, I turned to look at the rocking chair. I took in this room of memories. It gave me confidence.

The room was a lecture hall, maybe three hundred seats, with an estimated 170 attendants, but they were spread evenly throughout the seats. The seats were steeply raked. I was mic'ed (I wasn't in Carlisle, they could hear me whisper in the back of that room without one) and when the opening music faded, I looked up and said, "WHAT?"

I surprised myself, and everyone else, by the volume. Good start, though.

And it was a good show, craning my neck up to the top, taking in the entire audience. Why has it taken five years to become so comfortable with this play? It's like something new, I am looking at the audience, not over them. I feel I am talking to them, not performing for them.

It was warm in there, some people were slouching a bit in their seats, but I didn't mind. The show was working. There were groans, laughs - the British jokes work.

It's become "We had a real English breakfast; eggs, bacon, sausage, turkey rashers, meat, meat and meat," as a complete list, not as commentary.

Photo: Nice shirt - and just in time, too.

The line, "Have you ever noticed, there are newborn babies everywhere ... even in Britain," always gets a laugh in London. It got a bigger laugh in Carlisle when I said, "even in London," which is what I will no doubt repeat tomorrow in Lincoln.

After a short break for coffee, there was a panel discussion about the entire conference, and Toni participated in that. After we stayed and shook hands with a number of folks, including some young couples - two couples each lost a child just this past November. They all impressed me with the way they had already incorporated their children into their lives, though they all had stories about how difficult some family member was being in ackowledging their lost babies.

The rocking chair thing, it turned out, was simply a last-minute error. The chair that they did in fact have at the SANDS office has recently been picked up, unbeknownst to those who knew they still needed it, by the owner who had since left "on holiday." The whole, "throw a blanket over an office chair" was a last-minute fix, an attempt to set things right, without realizing how important it was to me, or the show. A mistake, not some intentional (or even unintentional) slight. But hey, I get so few opportunities for diva fits.

For dinner we joined my brother and his family at a Giraffe close to our hotel. I was practically brainless, but the cocktails were scrumptious and I did my best to be personable. However, this 5 mile running, nervous breakdown having, solo performance acting twit was not through yet. I felt I had earned some joy, and so I left bedtime to Toni, and went out pub-hopping with Kelly and Adrienne. Adrienne finally got to hear the true story of how her sister and I hooked up, which seems creepy since I've know her since she was ten. However, as has been previously mentioned, she is now 23 ... which was how old Toni was when we started dating.

Oh Jesus Christ am I old.

Anyway, the pints were tasty, the conversation was blue, and I went to bed shortly before 1 am.

Photo: Zelda learns a fun magic trick from a complete asshole.

We caught the 5:50 out of King's Cross on our way to Lincoln, and I am writing this on the train. The day was spent quite liesurely, largely in Regent's Park. Con and Adrienne set off on their own the explore Westminster Abbey, and we just strolled through the park, paddled out on the pond to get a closer look at the baby birds, and took a nap under the trees.

We made a brief trip to Covent Garden where we saw the worst magician ever. I have seen buskers make fun of the crowd before for not applauding, but this guy was a legend. He actually stopped his act before it was over, to chastise us for standing around like dummies, and backed away without taking any money.

What a dick.

Day Five: London - Totally Wrong

The children were left in the care of MP and Auntie Adrienne last night so that Kelly, Toni and I could steal off and see The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare's Globe on Bankside. For my wealth of knowledge of the place, I have only seen one show there, and it was hardly a model example - though I have to say, the "Fancy Dress Party Macbeth" remains the best production of the Scottish Play I've ever seen.

The performance of Merchant couldn't have been more traditional, and pretty much what I would have done if I set out to create a faithful - if patently offensive - production of this unapologetically anti-Semeitic work (though that word would not have meant anything to Shakepeare, blah blah blah, it's a hate-filled play.)

Instead of rationalising that WS was some kind of foreward thinking egalitarian (he wasn't) they chose the other route, which was to make everyone grotesque. Shylock is an evil, hunched, bearded, withered old Jew - and played by John McEnery, the guy who played Mercutio in Zeffirelli's R&J the year I was born. I didn't make the connection util I was looking over the program at the best hole-in-the-wall Indian restauarnt in the world (no wonder the British lost to those people.) The Duke of Morocco was a grinning, strutting, stuffed-codpiece jutting cartoon of an African, the Spaniard an English-mangling braggart, and they even managed to squeeze in a joke at the French where one doesn't exist.

As for the Christians, the masque featured what could almost be constued as a Black Mass ... if it was taken seriously, because really it was more like a bunch of frat boys dressed as priests and bishops and popes in devils' masks, performing an obscene marriage. They profess Christianity, but flagrantly ridicule the its leaders.

Which means they aren't truly hypocrites. They mock the trappings of Christianity - Catholicism, to be precise - but espouse pure love for Christ. One of the funniest moments in the play is when Antionio insists Shylock must be made to convert. To Antionio it isn't a punishment (it wouldn't have been to Shakespeare, nor his audience) but a blessing. However, the look on Shylock's face can't be described. It was hilarious. And that's offensive. And I laughed really loud and I don't feel bad about that.

The one stereotype that remained untouched was that of the (if you believe this sort of thing) homosexual Antonio, and his affection for Bassanio. There is no question that that was his subtext, that that was what he was feeling and thinking - but in a play with such obvious mockery, of everyone, that minority alone was treated with subtelty and respect. And I found that a double-standard. I don't want to sound like one of those people who get bent out of shape, like "man, you can't make fun of gays anymore." In fact, you can, and people do - hell, gay people do - every minute of every day. So, like a number of production elements I found jarring and ill-advised (which don't warrant mentioning) I found the omission disappointing.

I am not suggesting they should have had a mincing Antonio. But if the Duke of Morocco could be made to look and behave like Muhammad Ali, Antonio seemed like he was from a different production.

Big ups to Kristy Besterman and Pippa Nixon, who had to step up from (respectively) the roles of Nerissa and Jessica to the roles of Portia and Nerissa (with Ms. Nixon doubling in her usual role of Jessica) with book in hand to cover for the woman usually playing Portia. The book-in-hand thing was distracting for about two seconds as Ms. Besterman did know and awful lot of the part and was very good in the role.

God bless the understudies, without them we'd all have to go home.

Day Four: London - Rocking With It

Photo: That's a man, baby.

Good God. The children's television is worse here than at home.

It was a long day yesterday, taking the train from Carlisle to London. We were taking a first class coach, and lucky me, I got the odd single seat a few rows up from everyone else. I read and dozed on and off for four hours. They do have an awful lot of sheep here.

The sheer excitement of being on a train eventually wore off for the kids, and Zelda simply could not get comfortable or get to sleep. Hideous breakdown in King's Cross.

Toni, as ever, finds the best places to eat. We took a great early evening walk through Bloomsbury to Abeno, a Japanese place that specializes in egg pancakes called okonomi-yaki, which they cook in front of you on the table. Big metal hoit plates in front of my kids make me very, very nervous. So I drank a lot of sake.

This morning we led Adrienne and MP on "the basics" tour of London. Yes, there was a ride on a double-decker bus, and a trip around the Eye.

That's my third go-round on the London Eye. I almost pulled a Dad and told Toni they could go, and I'd stick my nose in Foyles for a half-hour, but I didn't. There will be no fourth trip on the London Eye for me, even if someone puts a gun to my head.

A walk past Buckingham to St. James Park, where we got sandwiches and camped by the river where Toni can make those noises she makes when she sees water fowl. Z. and O. got very excited by chasing pigeons, but I didn't think they'd catch one. I had to warm them against the larger birds that might not find flying away worth the effort and choose instead to bite them.

Goose bites hurt, you bet.

(Thank you.)

Sue from SANDS met us back at the hotel before three to walk Kelly and I to the Royal College of Physicians so we could tech the show. The auditorium we will be using is quite big, and they hope it may be two-thirds full. The acoustics are super, but the lights aren't really made for performance, it will be a number overlaping spots. The screen is possibly the biggest I've worked with and that's saying a lot.

Thanks again to Nick for re-engineering the slides and sound. Our lives are so much easier, it's ridiculous.

I was a little stunned to hear there wouldn't be a rocking chair. Someone apparently decided we didn't need one, I could just use an office chair with a sheet thrown over it, it's not that important.

Hmn.

I hate to be rude, I really do. And maybe airing this in public is inappropriate. But seriously ... have you seen the show?

Regardless, I insisted to Sue that we need the rocking chair. Any rocking chair, but a real one, one that rocks (I mean rocks, not rawks.) And I know she's doing her best to find one and to get it to the RCP.

It's a simple show. I don't ask for much. Except the rocking chair.

Stateside

I neglected to mention the guys. There were a large number of men there, many more than I normally play to. When your audience is made up of nurses, that usually means nothing but women. I haven't seen so many men in the audience since playing the NY Fringe, when I had nothing but five guys sitting right in front of me. And that was more like a firing squad.

They were pretty stone-faced through the production, as guys tend to be when watching theater. It was only the occasional nod I would receive in return from a comment said directly to one of them that I realized they were listening, affirming ("Oh yes, I know.") and that they were, in fact, with me.

A number came up afterwards to thank me for speaking for the fathers. I guess that's what I do best.

After taking a morning run, Kelly and I went strolling. It was a bright and beautiful day in London. I got some excellent trinkets for the family, we spent far too much time in Lush in Covent Garden, and saw some delightful human statuary.

Flying home I overdosed on Virgin's tv-on-demand feature. I always get a migraine traveling home from Britian - the length of the flight? The dehydration? The light in the cabin? The turbulence? Well, everyone had their blinds down, it was the smoothest Trans-Atlantic flight I've ever been on, and as for the length of time, WOO! I have eaten so much tee vee in years. Watched The Notorious Bettie Page, the third X-Men movie, an episode of Little Britain and one of Green Wing. My time. All mine.

Green Wing is hysterical. Gotta find that one on DVD.

UPDATE: The best synopsis of HAMLET ever written. Sometimes, vandalism is fun.

Life on Mars

Well fed and delirious in Britain. The accommodations provided by SANDS are very stylish, and I only feel marginally very dumb for blowing £4 so I could drop a blog entry from their coffee bar.

But it was a great, great day. Sure, I despaired in the middle of the night, trying desperately to sleep sitting up (eyeshades and earplugs notwithstanding) sweat running down both sides, it was so fricking hot. I hit the call button in the middle of the night, two stewards ran to my attention as I croaked "...water..?" And bless them, one foresaw my need, a tiny cup of H2O in their dainty hand.

Henrik and Lydia got us from Heathrow and took us to our hotel ... there were technical glitches every step of the way, it should be said. We were booked into the same seat (just an error in printing, it turned out, Kelly did not need to sit in my lap) and when we got to the hotel, for some reason they just cancelled one of our rooms.

Once straightened I showered and shaved (I am not an animal!) and we headed over to what was supposed to be a quick tech and then lunch. It was along tech, though it must be said that ALbert, our man at the International Students House, was very helpful, getting everything we were lacking together. So was Erica S. from SANDS, who was our guiding force from the moment we hit the place.

The show was one of my favorites in a long time - because for the first time in a long time, I was performing for fellow bereaved parents, and not medical practitioners. It helps when you know from the get-go that the crowd is with you and most likely not to turn.

What is hard is maintaining a sense of casualness when I perform the show once every six months. No one cares, I think, that I get a word or two wrong - how do they know? The playwright might know, but he'll just have to suck it. But it is hard to feel entirely comfortable, even when I know every word.

Today was much more loose. I wasn't educating anyone, if anything I was reflecting back to a sympathetic crowd things they already knew too well. It alters the delivery. Like we're all on the inside of a bad joke.

One question I got after (and there were many great questions) was whether British audiences receive it differently than American ones. Honestly, other than thinking the "much, much ... smaller" joke is funnier than Americans (there's that British self-deprecation) I said there really wasn't. Between types of people - parents vs. professionals, yes, or radical fringe theater goers, but not nationalities.

Erica, Neal L., Kelly and I had champagne in plastic cups back at SANDS headquarters to celebrate a successful day (they had many more things on their agenda than just this show, though it was, apparently, a capper) and spoke of the future, the past, and what Kelly and I might do tonight.

Fish, chips, bitters and Guinness, a walk down and up Oxford Street, and an early night, that's what.

Private to Toni: If you see this tonight, tell the kids I miss and love them very much, and I'll look in on them after bedtime tomorrow night. I miss and love you, too.

Digs

The Free Times review. I am "experienced and demonstrably astute." But in a good way.

The Cleveland Scene review. I am "supremely talented." But in a bad way.

The weather in London this weekend should be 63º and partly cloudy. Loverly. Finally found out where Kelly and I will be staying - the Thistle Marble Arch. This is a relief as I was not looking forward to telling customs I didn't know where I was to be sleeping Saturday night. Expect a report on my jog around Hyde Park.

Traitor!

Taking a short break before preparing for the evening. Toni and I (alone!) will be attending a performance of Blackbird by David Harrower before heading home for a sleepless night worrying about whether or not we will make the plane on time. This will no doubt be my final entry before departing for the States. It's been fun.

This morning we took the kids for a walk around St. James Park. Birds to feed, large tour groups to avoid, dogs to pet ... I think Zelda is getting antsy about leaving, there were a few outrageous outbursts but for the most part it was a delightful walk.

The weather has been incredibly kind this trip. I don't know what I was expecting, there was rain, of course, and the Ghost Walk was a bit chilly. But the past few days there have been these bursts of sunshine which have made our outdoor walkabouts pleasureful, not dreary. Zelda refused to wear her jacket around the park.

Crazy middle-aged squirrel man.

Sighted in the window of a magic shop in the Charing Cross Rd. underground; a scary-ass, life-size dummy.

After returning to to the vicarage, Henrik and I made an excursion to St. Mary's - Worshipping God for 1,200 Years if their website is to be believed. Why this last-minute trip to a church literally up the road from my brother's house? Yesterday, two days before we leave, he suddenly decided to inform me that St.Mary's is the final resting place of Benedict Arnold.

Directing Kirk W. Bromley's The American Revolution I got to know a bit about the General. Brian, who played him learned a lot more and let me know some of it. I figured it was someplace I had to check out. Though it isn't normally open on a Monday, they were kind enough to let us in, anyway.

We entered the church through the rear, because that's where the memorial is, right there, by that door. A step down into what was once the crypt ... and is now the Sunday school rooms.

Where Arnold, his wife Peggy Shippen, and his daughter are buried exactly, no one knows. The basement was just a charnel house full of coffins with lead plate inscriptions. The place flooded a lot, the caskets knocked around, and knocked their plates off. Finally, they were all just buried.

What remained was a painted memorial, neglected by time and ignored by Sunday schoolchildren. Recently a slab of Vermont granite was dedicated by a retired Senator, and that's what I took a picture of.

Upstairs, in the church proper (the building dates back to 1777) there is also a window to America's best known traitor, which includes a legend similar to the monument downstairs.

The crypt monument reads:

In this crypt lie the bodies of
Benedict Arnold
1741 - 1801
sometime General in the army of
George Washington
and of his faithful and devoted wife
Margaret Shippen
and of their beloved daughter
Sophia Matilda Phipps
The two nations whom he served
in turn in the years of their enmity
have united in enduring friendship.
The phrases "sometime General" and "the two nations whom he served" crack me up.


Benedict Arnold
1741 - 1801
Stone cold Yankee Doodle stud.

See you on the other side.

Sunday School

We joined Covenant Players this morning for a service at Bow Baptist/London Chinese Baptist Church. As is the case with so many congregations in the UK, Bow Baptist has dwindled in size, and so the London Chinese Baptists, who did not have a building of their own, have struck a sort of compromise. To see the breakdown of the worshippers this morning, I believe the future of Bow Baptist is Chinese.

It was delightful to see Henrik, Brenda and Joanna work together. I don't believe I have actually seen my brother and his wife do this work together since the weekend they were married. That's 20 years ago this June. They put on three short plays, one for the children and two for the adults. The set was a table, some chairs, the costumes their clothes, a few odd props - and fake blood. I could dig it. Looked like my day-job.

When Henrik came out after the longest of the plays, he led a Q&A about the issues raised in the performance, this about a leper healed by Jesus who shyied away from thanking Christ for the miracle, and taking the risk to find Jesus' followers only after he had been killed. Asking people what they think about what they see is a difficult task in the best of situtations. I can dig it. Again, I think my brother's work and my own has more in common than I ever realized.

It was agreat way to bring our journey here to a conclusion, it started with me performing for the Albion team, and ended with their performing for us.

We had a great Sunday roast afterwards at a family-freindly pub called The Gun, and just finished out the evening watching the first episode (a rerun) of a dynamite new drama on the BBC; Life on Mars, about a 2006 cop who gets hit by a car, and spends the rest of the series as a 1973 cop, trying to figure out if he is going crazy, in a coma, or dead. Or, just perhaps, really in 1973.

All Fools' Day

A Trip to the London Zoo


Regent's Park.







Zelda with tarantula.


Orson loves locusts.


Bouncy fun.













The family.

Shopping and Busking

Stuck close to home yesterday. I was making buffalo wings, bbq beans and cole slaw for dinner, and so our most exotic trip was to Sainsbury's for food.

Today we ventured to Covent Gardens, which was perhaps one of the best days of the trip so far. As I was singing Zelda to sleep tonight, she interrupted me to ask if we could go to the place where we got spaghetti again some day and get strawberry ice cream this time.

I thought then of everything we did while we were in Covent Gardens. There was a great, fast lunch, Zelda saw maybe a half-dozen different buskers, I got to show her the toy and puppet shop I first experienced five years ago, Toni and I loaded up on bath products, and Z. and O. got new outfits for church on Sunday ... which will be the first time they ever go to church.

Toni was jonesing to have time alone on Charing Cross Rd., and I wanted to see the Shakespeare exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, but it was already around three when we were finishing our ice cream. Toni figured we should get back instead, because the kids needed to sleep. I said they would sleep the minute I got Orson in the sling and Zelda into the stroller. She should go off on her own and Brenda, Henrik and I would be fine at the gallery.

I was right. The little ones knocked out shortly after we entered the musem. A bad habit to encourage, but there you are.

The Searching for Shakespeare exhibit was better than I thought it would be. They have six portraits formerly theorized to be life-portraits of the Bard - one is still under consideration as the real deal. I think they're all bogus. Regardless, they are historical paintings I have seen in reproduction for years, and it was fun to see them for real, up close.

Those - and famous, familiar portraits of Jonson, Marlowe, De Vere, Burbage, Stanley, and so on. More than I'd hoped for.

Dinner was pizza, and then the women went off for their night out. They saw a production of The Odyssey at the Lyric Hammersmith which you just need to ask Toni to describe. I'm envious, it sounds like it was an incredible production. The two of us will be seeing something on our own the last night here, or at least that's the plan, but The Odyssey closes tomorrow.

The day would have been perfect, except for this Cockney unicycle clown at the Gardens who called "all Americans are no-nothing dummy stupid-heads" and said that "Justin's favorite band sucks ass."

I thought that was uncalled for.

Don't talk about our son, Martha.

Millennium Bridge

A week before we left I visited a specialist, someone who treats migraines. Her entire staff was wonderful - the nurse, the doctor. Really put me at ease.

When I was in sixth grade I suffered from recurrent headaches. I went to a doctor, a man. He interviewed me, ran some tests, and concluded that there was nothing wrong with me, that I pretended to be ill because I wanted to be home with my mommy. He told my mom this.

Last week I received two migraine meds, was instructed to keep track of my headaches, how they come, my diet, etc. I have used each now - they are miracle drugs. Coming home from the theater last night I developed a pain over my right eye which moved into my right eye. Unlike most cases, the pain was not too intense before I started feeling nauseated. I didn't help there was someone on the train eating a really rank hamburger. Since Sunday I have been really susceptible to odors for some reason, especially at night. Dinner hasn't been too fun this week.

Phoning ahead (I thought cellphones were prevalent in the States, there's so many more of them here - and iPods, that's another story) Toni had a bed prepared for me in the t.v. room, away from the kids, away from everyone. I took the migraine medication - and it went away.

A migraine. Went away. I would have cried for joy, only I was asleep.

The day was lovely, though I will admit I was a little disappointed. I need to get over that. We had three things on our list - the London Eye, a boat ride down the Thames and possibly, if there were time, a tour of the Globe for Zelda, just the basic one, to see the inside.

We saw the Eye. That's it. Well, that isn't entirely it, we also had a great lunch at a noodle soup chain called Wagamama, and that led to a big little girl taking a serious nap in the stroller while we had coffee in the Globe cafe ... and then it was time to get home. Oh well. I guess what's important is that we're having a great, relaxed time - after all the weariness that's been passed around, it was best to take it easy. And there are worse things to do than take a long walk along the south bank of the Thames.

After a quick meal of fish and chips, Henrik and I took off to see the recent revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner at the Apollo. Okay, not British, not the playwright, not the actors, but who cares? Couldn't see it in New York, thrilled to be able to see it in London. Besides, Henrik has never seen or read it, ever, so I knew it would be a kick for him.

Martha & George

It is as good as they say. I was on my guard for an "understudy" notice to be up when we arrived, but it wasn't - I knew the entire cast had gotten nominated for Tonys. Henrik tells me Ms. Turner missed a few performances a month ago, and when she opened her mouth last night I almost wished for her sake she'd taken the night off, her classic, dusky voice just sounded very, very tired. Big, but tired.

The event began a bit symbolically, as we took our seats, the folks from Chicago sitting next to us were being harangued by a red-headed drunk. Apparently he had been sitting on one side of them, and then the actual owner of that seat arrived, and then he had been in our seat, on the other side. He started talking to them politely, and then got loud and insulting, "You Americans think you're big shots, but your just f***ing middle class," and like that. There were about a dozen people gesticulating wildly at the ushers and he was eventually escorted out.

Our aisle mates and we chatted for a bit, Henrik reporting that was the first time he had ever seen something like that happen in a dozen years of British theater-going. We concluded being verbally assaulted by an alcoholic wasn't exactly an inappropriate way to begin that night's performance.

SPOILER: You haven't read or seen Virginia Woolf? Maybe you don't want to continue. Secrets will be revealed.

I was probably supposed to read Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in college, but I didn't. I know I haven't seen the Mike Nichols film, and some say that's for the best. In any case, the only other time I've seen it was (surprise) at Great Lakes Theater Festival, about ten years ago. I really enjoyed that production. In fact, having never even read it before, I was shocked at how great the first act was, and equally amused to hear another audience member heading for the lobby during the first intermission saying loudly, "This is terrible - there's nothing to like about any of these people!" Great drama, very funny, and it was still pissing people off after 35 years! That's theater.

What I did not get ten years ago was the whole "no son" thing. Thought it was symbolic. Maybe there was a son, but he's gay or something so they don't want to talk about him. Or it was just a game. The kind of game that people don't want to have children play, those kinds of people. Intellectuals.

Except it's stated pretty clearly at the end, they cannot have children. Cannot. In the days of my ignorance, the idea that people cannot have children was a very simple concept. Intercourse, but no conception. You cannot have children.

What I did not know was that means trying to have children. A lot. Hoping for children. Having miscarriages, maybe a lot of them. Stillbirths. Not so simple.

Honey & Nick

The play takes place on the advent of the 21st birthday of this "imaginary" son. A private ritual, George and Martha make up a life for their son, and on this night she breaks the rules and tells someone else. And on this night, George kills him. It's over. He's dead.

So he was never imaginary. Was there a boy? A small boy, a stillborn boy, or a boy who died shortly after birth? He was real.

"There's nothing to like about any of these people." Maybe not. It's ugly in its hysterical-ness. It's a play about failure, so many different kinds of failure, for everyone in the room. The younger couple have much in common with the older one. Nick and Honey can't have children, either. Hmn. Another take on the word "hysterical."

The performances were uniformly brilliant, but I simply adored Bill Irwin. A monument to passive aggression. But I was also struck by Mireille Enos' Honey. Never gave her character much notice before, I think I had the least sympathy for her in the past. But she was heartbreaking. Oh yes, mousy and yet so, so sympathetic. So vulnerable.

It was a great show. Capped by a migraine. Ah well.

The Good Meeting

I remember the date in June, 2001, which was the first time I ever traversed the New York subway entirely on my own. I was a 32 year-old man. Ever since I had been with Toni, I was used to just following her, because she knew the system like the back of her hand. It was a little disorienting to be on my own.

Yesterday may have been the first time I did the Underground entirely on my own - not as momentous occasion. It doesn't sppear as complicated, doesn't seem like there are as many routes. And people don't walk as fast.

I was attending a meeting with the folks at SANDS. Their office was a few blocks up from Oxford Circus. I got out of the tube and it was bright and sunshiny, though it had begun raining before I had arrived at 28 Portland Place.

It was an illuminating meeting. The show made quite an impact on them last Friday, and they can't wait to get me back in town to perform it again. So we were discussing how to make that happen.

The big question for me was, and is: What do I want to do with this show? And, of course, there's only so much more I can do with this show. There's not going to be a motion picture - video was discussed, again. There was a general consensus that video can be dangerous, it was too easy to imagine medical practitioners using it in the wrong way, showing select scenes to get an impression of "what not to do" for example, and I'd hate to think of that. They agreed.

Publication is a possibility. I never thought a play publishing concern would be interested, who would want to perform this work other than me? But letting a bereavement support organization distribute it so others can read it, people who need some new way of looking at their own grief? That's appealing.

BTW - I love UK pop radio. I had no idea my British relations consumed so much contemporary American R&B and hip-hip.

There were some great, surprise exchanges, reflecting on the performance. Neal thought the show will go over great in the British Isles because, as he says, it's not very American. I wanted to know what that meant, and Erica chimed in that she wasn't sure I was American, once she heard my brother lived here she got all confused, and thought that perhaps I was British and that I was the one who had moved to America.

Also, Neal gave me their one criticism - the title. They understood it after they'd seen the play, but had to admit it was a bit off-putting beforehand (and he's not alone in that assessment) and so ... where did I get the idea to call the play I HATE THIS?

I picked up one of their own books from off the table, and told them I wanted to title of my play to sound like this picture looks:



There were smiles all around, as if to say, "Well. Yes. That's all right, then."

I was very impressed with them, and their work. Their mission, primarily, is to comfort and advise the bereaved, those who lost children before term and up to twenty-eight days after birth. Now they are beginning to get into research and prevention, working to discover the reasons certain babies don't come to term.

It was a warm, positive meeting, and it went on longer than I thought it would, it was such an interesting, engaging time.

Toni was feeling very unwell all day yesterday, I got to take the kids out for a long walk late yesterday morning, getting postcard stamps, and a kite - maybe there will be kite-flying later this week! The plans for to day ... well, we'll see if they come to fruition.

A Blustery Day

photo: St. Peter's Vicarage

Yesterday was spent close to home. Mothering Day falls in March in the UK, and lucky me, I knew this in advance. While Henrik and I were dashing around the City last Friday, I had the good fortune to hit up a LUSH (that's well-put, isn't it?) in Victoria Station.

LUSH is home to our favorite luxury bath products, something we discovered to our great delight in Vancouver on our Honeymoon. So it has that connection, too. There are a few in the states now, but plenty more over here, where it originated. I got Toni a special Mother's day package, with bath bombs, hand lotion, hair treatment, etc. She was surprised to see it on the tabel yesterday morning.

Lydia made her famous double-chocolate chip cookies, we took some walks, and for dinner went to a local Italian place called Aldo's. It's charming, and so is Aldo and his girlfriend, who is the server. Small place. I don't believe it would normally be open on a Sunday night, but it was a special occasion.

I was not feeling well, I'm still not, and Joanna had recommended the alfredo - which is not on the menu, but Aldo will make it if its requested. Delicious, subtle (not too salty) creamy, amazing. Thanks, Aldo! He actually chased us halfway down the street when we had left a few of Orson's toys behind.

As for today ... The changing of the guard? Not so much. I've never really felt compelled to see it, I mean who wants to show up in the exact place every other tourist goes to, exactly when they go there?

It was very blustery, and started to rain, and so Zelda began to lose patience with it after time. Couldn't blame her. Luckily we were standing in the right place for the morning's replacement regiments to come marching by, playing fife and drum, and so the event was not a total downer.

photo: Like mother, like daughter. A lust for shoes.

Zelda was disappointed she did not get to see the Queen, and though I tried to explain to her that Her Majesty does not make personal appearances, having already ridden in a coach with one Queen Elizabeth, she could not understand why this one wouldn't want to meet her.

We did go to the Queen's Gallery, where we got to see the permanent collection, and the Queen's 80th birthday portrait. They play a long video of the artist, Rolf, creating the portrait next to the actual thing. Zelda found this very interesting, then fell asleep, and so we got to actually look at some of the art a bit more casually.

This evening Toni, Brenda and I took a "Ghost Walk" around the West End. More jovial than creepy, our host, Graham, led us on a tour hour walk around the theatre district and then into a pub.

I am actually feeling "rather poorly" at the moment,my shoulders are very sore and I am just feeling woozle. I hope I feel better in the morning, I having a meeting with the people from SANDS tomorrow afternoon to discuss future plans for I HATE THIS. Wish me luck.


Waiting for George Michael.