A few weeks ago, my boyfriend asked me what plays I had seen in London. Upon giving him an exhaustive list of the dramas, comedies, tragedies, and musicals we have seen — he paused.
“Do you think you don’t appreciate the plays as much because you see so many in such a short period of time?  As in — is it less enjoyable than seeing a play when you go to the theatre rarely?”
I had to think for a minute about my answer.  I tried to compare seeing plays to listening to music.  If I listened to a new song every four weeks, I don’t believe I would have more appreciation or enjoyment for these songs than for songs I listened to at a rate of four times a week.  Listening to more new music, rather, would allow me to expand my knowledge of music and give me more of an opportunity to choose precisely the kind of music that I like.  Thus, I believe that seeing more theatre on the London Program has given me more of a chance to find plays that I PARTICULARLY enjoy.

And here are some of my findings…

Musicals.  I have always known I’ve loved musicals, but after this program I feel as if I have a better understanding of why this is.  Music in a piece of theatre is powerful, but listening to someone sing is a unique experience.  As someone who sings, I feel myself empathizing with an actor when they sing.  I know what it is like to reach for a note, or to sing a melody that marches forward, or to sing a slow, quiet ballad.  I feel myself imagining that I am reaching these notes when the actors do, which generates a strong emotional reaction within me.  After we saw Sondheim’s Assassins, I noted that my emotional experience this show and the Scottsboro Boys stood out to me among the rest of the many plays we had seen.  Seeing so many plays allowed me to pinpoint the origins of this feeling, as I was able to compare so many distinct, lovely experiences.

Walking around Bloomsbury a month or so ago, I found a wonderful statue of Noor Inayat Khan, a Special Operatives Executive agent during WWII, and was really intrigued about her being one of the few women who have been commemorated in London. So when it came time to do my Urban Arts project, I decided to draw public statues of women around the city and create a book of them.

The “table of contents” contains a map locating each monument– here is an online version of the map. I organized the drawings chronologically by when the subject lived:

Boadicea (Boudicca): Regions Caesar never knew they posterity shall sway. Queen of the Iceni who died A.D. 61 after leading her people against the Roman invader.

Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, President of the London Hospital 1904, who always took a personal and sympathetic interest in its works and who in 1900 introduced to England the Finsen light cure for lupus and presented the first lamp to this hospital.

The labels, which are based on the blue-and-white commemorative plaques you can’t go anywhere without spotting, are whatever words the people installing the statue chose to put on it.

Cora: The beloved daughter of J.B. and H.R. Philipp who passed away Dec. 26th 1907, aged 7 years and 8 months.

Virginia Woolf 1882-1941

The Women of World War II: This memorial was raised to commemorate the vital work done by over seven million women during World War II.

Noor Inayat Khan 1914-1944 G.C. M.B.E. Croix de Guerre: Noor Inayat Khan was an SOE agent infiltrated into occupied France. She was executed at Dachau concentration camp. Her last word was “Liberte.” The Special Operatives Executive (SOE) was a secret organization set up by Winston Churchill to help resistance movements during WWII. Noor lived nearby and spent some quiet time in this garden.

One of the best things about the project was experiencing the statues’ surroundings as I drew them. Some I had to draw from pictures– Boudicca, for example, is swarmed by traffic, tourists, and a souvenir stand; and Queen Alexandra was in an accessible spot, but I got too cold to finish her there! It was fascinating, though, to watch what went on around the statues, and whether people noticed them. Sometimes I suspected people only stopped and looked because they saw me drawing, but other times they definitely were already interested (the Women of World War II monument is especially popular). Some of the spots were still what they were when the person walked there: the hospital is still functioning around Queen Alexandra, and people are “spending some quiet time in the garden” around Noor Inayat Khan. And the statues watch it all happen.

The nominations for the 2015 Olivier Awards were released a few days ago, so in our final London theatre class on Thursday, we held a little awards ceremony of our own. Only the plays we had seen as a group were in the running. For each category, anyone could make a recommendation, which then needed the support of two more students to become a nominee. Once all the nominations were complete, we chose the winner of each category by popular vote. The results were as follows:

Best New Play: King Charles III

Best Revival: Assassins

Best Supporting Actor: Simon Lipkin (Assassins)

Best Supporting Actress: Lydia Wilson (King Charles III)

Best Director: James Lloyd (Assassins)

Best Design: Golem

Best Lighting: The Changeling

Best Actor: Mark Strong (A View from Bridge)

Best Actress: Maxine Peake (How to Hold Your Breath)

Worst New Play: The Hard Problem

Worst Revival: Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2

Worst Actor/Actress: Phoebe Fox (A View from the Bridge)

It was fun to see how, even after living in the same building for ten weeks, the seventeen of us all had wildly different opinions about almost every play. Certain votes (The Hard Problem as Worst New Play) were almost unanimous, but other categories were much more difficult to decide. The Best Actor vote was closest: Mark Strong’s performance was incredible, but in our ranking, he had to face Ralph Fiennes, Mark Rylance, and Ian McDiarmid. How can you say that any one of those actors was better than the other three?

Personally, the result that shocked me the most was that Vera Chok, who played Bo in The Hard Problem, didn’t win Worst Actress. To me, she was the worst actress, playing the worst character, in the worst play I’ve ever seen. To others, Phoebe Fox’s horrendous “Brooklyn” accent was painful enough to ruin an otherwise incredible play.

More than anything, I thought that our awards ceremony was a useful way to reflect on all the plays we’ve seen. There has been quite a mix of good and bad, short and long, funny and devastating, unique and formulaic plays, and there isn’t a single one that I regret seeing. Even spending six hours to sit through both parts of Henry IV, while miserable, helped me understand some of the complex factors that make a play good or – in this case – very, very bad.

Slide 1
Location Ludgate Hill near St. Paul’s Cathedral
Internal Monologue It has been such a long bloody day. And it is only Tuesday. I did not expect for there to be that many complications with the brief. Now I have to start from scratch and the bloody thing will still probably go to trial. Uh. At least I am getting a run in. The more stressed I get the more likely I am to binge and I know that Vanessa wanted to go to meet her parents this weekend. Why did I agree to that? Man, I really like the way that St. Paul’s in the evening. It is so majestic, so intimidating. I should probably go to church this week; Vanessa’s parents would like that…
Backpack Contents Laptop, hardcopy of brief, water bottle, half eaten Pret sandwich, broken pen leaking, iPhone, Wallet, worn suit, Nook

Slide 2
Location Kingsway
Internal Monologue Too soon. Too soon to bump my mileage. Last week I was at 40km a week I was not up for a long run this long. What was I thinking? Oh yeah the bloody sun was out and I just could not sit in my apartment any longer. I don’t care how much work I have to do I could feel my own brain cells deteriorating. I’m such a wanker. Well I can make it to the end of the street. There is a Pret and a Cafe Nero and I can recover before I try to run back- all the way to Kensington; maybe I will take the Tube. Did I remember my Oyster Card? I must have put it…
Backpack Contents Water bottle, Wallet (without Oyster Card), Advil, change of socks, extra jacket, Powerbar, Banana, Born to Run, inhaler, inhaler chamber, running log

Slide 3
Location Victoria Embankment
Internal Monologue It is only the first day in March. How are there already this many tourists? All I wanted to do was have a nice run with Jen and now I cannot even hear myself think let alone hear about her latest boyfriend. Uh it feels like there is a new one every week anyways. I will just catch the deets on the one next week. Wait did she say that we were going to have drinks with him this week. I can’t remember. Well I understand why all of these people have come out though. I can actually see the Shard right now. The fucking fog usually blocks out everything on the other side of the water. Dude, can’t you see me running towards you? Okay that’s cool I will just weave around…
Backpack Contents Water bottle, caffeinated Jelly Beans, Phone, Keys, 10 pounds, tampon

Crammed on the sidewalk of a crammed street. Cars drone by and people rush; often in suits. In the middle of the London Labyrinth we listen to the Irish Voice of an Irish man wearing Irish green talk about St. Dunstan’s. To the author of Sweeney Todd it may have been a “sacred edifice,” but now it is lost in the buildings and the bustle of Fleet Street. The bell still chimes the hour though (and, luckily for us, the three-quarters hour). That bell which made the country folk gaze with so much wonder. The country folk who must be amazed walking into London, the seat of empire, with its “sacred” churches, beautiful architecture and mastery of time. Even now Greenwich Mean Time sets the standard for the whole world.

The bell, I think, holds a particularly interesting story. As Brian told us the two figures which strike it are giants, slain by Brutus. Brutus is the mythic founder of London and Britian is his namesake. He is the Roman son (or grandson depending on your source) of Aeneas, the Trojan hero whom Wikipedia calls the “first true hero of Rome.” Here then the origin myth of one empire is linked to that of another. I thought this connection rather odd at first. On reflection though it really isn’t odd at all. Doesn’t a brief sketch of the western history seem to pass the flame of the west from the Greeks to the Romans to the British (perhaps we might add the Holy Romans in there too). So what could be more natural than to have the two great cities of two of the great empires linked by blood and myth? And then one of the effects of empire is the sharing of cultures. It involves a sort of opening up and pouring out of ideals, ideas and even myths. It was at St. Dunstan’s too that we first learned of London’s walls and perhaps it is telling that London did not head an empire until its walls were down and it was left open to all that came its way.

Sunlight slants in through large windows. The windows are high, tall -in order to be grand- yet skinny, so that they might fit into this afterthought room, stuck in between the grand ones on either side. Symmetrical benches bookend the room; having been provided for the comfort of visitors, they are hard, lack backs to lean against, and want for cushions.

Yet the paradoxes of this room do not come close to the irony of the rooms to either side. Both exhibits can be easily seen through great doorways, which consume so much of the walls they occupy that it seems inaccurate to say the door occupied space in the wall; rather the wall occupied what little space the doorway was willing to leave for it.

One room displays great works of Egyptian art upon the walls, while in the center mummies- preserved forever after death- rest in silent accusation. Though rich in life, in death these once powerful people now hold no say in what shall be done with their earthly remains. For all their wealth, their bodies now sit in humiliating display. What good is their money now? Is it not the very thing which has now brought them so low?

But the corpse of the wealthy is not the only things which can be seen through the great doorways sitting on the hard benches in the afterthought room. Through the other door a pert sign proclaims the focus for the second exhibit: Currency.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti “Proserpine” 1874

While walking around the Tate Britain, especially in the 1840’s room, there were many paintings which caught my eye for one reason or another, but the painting “Proserpine” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti from 1874 was the one that stuck in my head despite moving on to many other fantastic paintings, so I had to return and study this mesmerizing painting. The most striking aspect of this painting is the face of the figure in the painting. It is very obviously female, being based upon the Roman deity Proserpina, who was female, yet there are very traditionally masculine features in the jawline and the hands giving a very androgynous feel to the figure, though still feminine.

The figure is holding a pomegranate with a bite taken out of it. This pomegranate is yellow instead of the typical red color we see today, though that could be from the time it would take for a pomegranate to travel to England in that time, becoming overripe. Knowing the pomegranate is the fruit that caused Proserpina to be forced to go to the underworld after eating it starts to unfold the meaning behind the small details within the painting. Knowing the mythology adds the information that Proserpina is only able to return to her mother once a year, which is when spring happens, as indicated by the flora in the background and the pleasant light on the face of the figure. However, the dish at the bottom seems to be empty, and the pomegranate is unripe, contrary to the idea of spring and prosperity.

Looking closely at the figure’s face, I noticed she had a peculiar expression, kind of a mix of disappointment, anger, and boredom. Judging off of the same mythology, we can assume that it may be nearing the end of spring since there is nothing on the dish, the sun is full in the sky like summer, and the fruit is overripe. This means that Proserpina is with her mother, yet not for much longer. Though this should be her happiest time of year, instead of rejoicing in her freedom, as short as it is, she seems to instead be thinking of the future and the past instead of the present, something she would regret in the future during her time stuck in the underworld. Most of the body is covered by a shapeless blue-green cloth. The only other direct visual feature of the figures body is in the hands, where one is holding the pomegranate, and the other seems to almost be holding the pomegranate-holding hand back, a nod towards the mythology once again in the pomegranate being the fruit of the underworld.

For the time of the Pre-Raphaelites, which many of their works were viewed extremely negatively, the “Proserpina” may also have been seen in a negative light for some of the issues brought up within the painting. Taking this painting within the context of imperialism, the lore surrounding Proserpine and being torn away from her home to be forced to live in another, unfamiliar place is one view of imperialism, and a very negative one, definitely one that would clash with the common views on imperialism at the time based upon how much was taken from various countries without the consent of the original cultures. The Elgin Marbles is a good example of this. Additionally, the androgyny of the figure and the undertones of evilness/darkness within the very spring-like atmosphere brings up a contradictory tone which may be upsetting and unsettling to those within the Victorian age.

A major idea around the Pre-Raphaelites is the utility along with the beauty of art, which a painting may not prove to have a direct utility aspect, but that idea of that aspect is within the painting itself, the figure and objects within the painting are incredibly detailed, yet very simple at the same time. All the figure wears is a simple robe, the wall in the background is bare, the table is plain wood, and except for a single dish, there is nothing on the table. It looks like a simple country home instead of an aristocratic stately home. Everything is beautiful within the painting, but everything has a definite purpose and is not full of any more frills than it needs. This simple yet intricate combination within the painting seems to advocate the usefulness of art within one’s life since it displays a scene even a lower-class citizen would see, not a grand staircase or sitting-room or the like. Looking from a perspective today, this simplicity, along with the mythological aspects, spans to the entire social web of classes and has that relatability such that anyone would be extremely proud to be able to show this off within their home. This aspect of art ebbs on the side of art as useful instead of useless and having no purpose within anyone’s life.

Walking into Leighton House, I feel as if Frederick Leighton has welcomed me into his home, but at first, I can’t imagine how anyone could actually live here. We walk through the opulent entry, past a tiny fountain, which is sputtering to keep up with the grandiose tiles that surround it. A stuffed peacock greets us as we climb the stairs; its natural beauty is perfectly matched by the manmade art that surrounds it. I look down, and the floor is a mosaic stitched together from a million tiny parts. I look up to find gold leaf pressed into unimaginably intricate shapes. Tiny statues of exquisite bronze men flank the halls, and every corner of the home is beautiful.

As we progress through to the study, I begin to understand. Leighton’s study, while gorgeous, is not overwhelming like the front of the house. There’s a hint of the natural light that ordinarily envelops the space, and the beauty is much simpler. The drapery sketches that sit in the window call my attention. I remember my Observational Drawing class from last term, when I sat by a window for hours, trying desperately to achieve a fraction of his skill with my untrained hand. The ethereal drapery sits, translucent, upon the bodies of women he’s sketched. There is no hesitation in his work. The Death of Brunelleschi, completed when Leighton was only twenty-two for his graduation, leaves me in awe in my own inferiority. This room has brought the house to life for me; it feels lived in.

Exploring the house, I feel as if I have seen Leighton’s psyche. This place is a representation of his mind, with each of his tastes serving a perfect function, but exceptional beauty throughout. The areas where he entertained are as beautiful as they are functional, and the more private spaces where he worked are airy and inspiring. The William Morris wallpaper in his bedroom speaks to his philosophy on art, and the room doesn’t seem plain to me, as the guide suggests, but rather a simple place for him to relax at the end of his day. Once we return to the grand foyer, I look at it with fresh eyes, imagining Queen Victoria circling the fountain while the Prince of Wales takes another glass of champagne, with tinkling piano keys echoing down from the study.

I sometimes forget that the Thames is a river. It is easy to regard it as just another street, winding its way through London, a steady traffic of boats breezing up and down it’s lanes. But (as one of the first exhibits at the Museum of London will tell you) the Thames is responsible for a lot of what London was and is today. It is also a secret-keeper, enfolding forgotten stories in its waves.

On one Tuesday afternoon, after finishing up some work in the cafe at St. Paul’s, I ventured over to the millennium bridge to take in the warm air and sunshine that was so new to London at that point. As I walked along the embankment, I noticed that there were people below, strolling along the beach. It hadn’t occurred to me that the Thames beaches would be a place of leisure; I’d assumed that pollution would have made them unpleasant or even dangerous. Intrigued, I finally found the narrow ladder which lead to the beach and made my way down to see what the attraction was.

View of the Shard from the North bank

The debris making up the shore was surprisingly free from the modern garbage one might expect. Instead, it was cluttered with bits of brick and smooth stones, and, as I made my way, I noticed shards of painted ceramics, sea glass and odd bits of white clay which I later found out were tobacco pipes. Of these there were hundreds, the long white stems and rounded bowls like the Thames’ own species of mollusk. Further along I came across a startling sight: piles of bones, brown with age, lying like bits of driftwood along the shore. A woman who was beachcombing  nearby told me that they were the waste from the old meat markets and cargo ships. “Sometimes”, she said, “you can even find teeth.”

Bones, shells and brick

I spent about an hour simply walking the beach and picking up little shards of plates or glass that interested me. But I did so with some hesitation: all of these things were artifacts, pieces of lives long ended which had washed up like offerings to the city they’d inhabited. The Thames, which gave life to this city so long ago, cared for these mementos and its waves, when they pulsed in and out, sounded like wind chimes with all of the little pieces they brought forth.

I found joy today at the Courtauld Gallery. This cozy art gallery is tucked away in a portion of Somerset House, where I ice-skated long ago on my birthday. The gallery’s art spans nearly a millennium, from medieval to post-impressionism, but its compact size and modestly proportioned rooms allowed me to connect with every single painting, examine each as much or as little as I wanted, and make two or three circles around a room to familiarize myself with the relationship behind its paintings as well as each individually. I especially loved the impressionistic art, including Cezanne’s still lifes and landscapes, Seurat’s pointillism, and Degas’s ballerina sculptures. But I adored dozens of paintings and artists and felt so uplifted and inspired visiting the gallery.

Degas’s “Dancer looking at the sole of her right foot” (1920)

Cezanne’s “Pot of Flowers and Pears” (1890); in the real painting, that apple is mesmerizingly luminous and spherical

Closeup of van Dongen’s “The Violincellist at the Moulin de la Galette” (1905); the paint is applied in thick, textured smears

Somerset House looking stately

It didn’t hurt my spirits that we had another spectacular day, unbelievably sunny and temperate, although with a fiesty wind that kept flinging my hair in my eyes as I walked. Sun brings out a completely different feel in London. Usually grumpy, hurried people are happy and practically skipping instead of clomping down sidewalks. I read a few chapters of Forster’s Howards End in Russell Square this afternoon because I couldn’t bear to go back inside when the weather was so brilliant.

Russell Square in its sunny glory

Daffodils everywhere!