Monday was a jump start back into life at LDA. The most eventful thing that happened - but it was quite eventful - was that I did a handstand! A full handstand, and I held it! How amazing is that? I was standing… upside down! On my hands! That really energized me for the rest of the day. And of course stage combat was epic, because now we’re choreographing an actual scene with lots of fighting in it, and as Benvolio I get to break apart a bunch of fights and do some hand to hand. I’m going to try to get someone to tape it, because not only would I like to see it, but I think the rest of the world needs an opportunity to see how kickass I am. 
Look how accomplishments have kept me modest! (So many exclamation marks, there are just so many things to exclaim!)
I was adequately terrified going into Shakespeare on Tuesday because of how thoroughly he tore us apart the week before, but it was relatively painless. We weren’t good, in fact we were still bad, but we had improved, and Michael could tell. It’s just that one rotten apple in our team that’s bringing us all down. Acting is a team sport, and people don’t really realise this. If one person in the team isn’t putting the work in, we can’t win. Anyway, our showing for that is on Friday, so maybe by then he’ll even have learned his lines. Physical Theatre held up its “favourite class-dom” by being awesome, then we had Rupert Evans come for our Masterclass. He had been in Life As A Dream and was absolutely gorgeous. In fact, we were supposed to have talked to him last week, but we needed to reschedule for one reason or another. He was so sweet, and really cute. Not particularly interesting or uninteresting, basically average. I still prefer Sam West over him, which is a bummer because Sam West is older… Anyway, then we went with Michael to the Freud Museum.
Now, I dislike Freud to begin with, but this was creepy. This was the house that he lived in for one year when he moved to London before he died, and that his daughter, Anna, lived in after. She apparently pioneered child psychotherapy. The guy who worked there was really … hmm. Michael called him “spooky”, but I don’t know how to describe him, really. For one thing, he was clearly obsessed with Freud, but nothing made him much of an expert on the subject and it was as if he was expecting us to treat him as a scholar, and thought we were all … budding psychotherapists or I don’t know what. It was only a fun experience in that while they were showing us some nonsense videos about god knows what, Geoff and I couldn’t stop laughing - because the videos were so ridiculous! We talked with Michael a bit after, before heading back.
That night, Sienna’s boy invited me and Geoff and her to go see a gig that some friends of his were playing. It was at a bar somewhere, we took the bus, it was super close. The bar was fairly empty, so I didn’t really know what to expect. We hung out for a while waiting for them to play, and when they went on, The Beat Presidents, they’re called, they were so good. I could not believe how good they were; I mean, legit awesome band. These were the kinds of songs that you would hear on the radio. You want to know why you don’t? Because the band doesn’t get around to recording anything! They keep winning all these competitions, and they won studio time like a year ago, and still haven’t used it! Anyway, John, Sienna’s boy, I think recorded a few of their songs, which you can listen to online. Myspace them. Incredible.
Wednesday was fun. We had another Masterclass after Theatre History, this time with a guy named Frank Barry, who I believe is a pretty big deal. He was in Lawrence Olivier’s troupe once upon a time, and he gave us a lecture/performance on Shakespeare. It was pretty cool, but it had been built up, so admittedly it wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be. In Acting, the scenes that I’m doing with Geoff are so good! And the best part is that everyone else in the class loves it as much (I think) as we do, especially Alison (our teacher). For the showing in two weeks, she’s keeping our scenes for last because they’re clearly the best.
That evening, Sienna’s aunt came over and we made dinner again for her and hung out. It was really nice, she’s lots of fun, and we’re going to go see Peter Pan again when it comes to the O2 in December.
Thursday after classes, we mostly just focused on Shakespeare because the showing was the next day. So we came home, ate, procrastinated, worked Shakespeare, repeat. So you can imagine we were all a bit anxious when Friday came around. I did not think that our showing was going to be good, especially in comparison to the Taming of the Shrew group, after hearing everything that people were saying about their show. In any case, we ran through it four times today, Friday, including the showing, and Richard… didn’t hate them. He did mention that Shrew was better, and this was due partly to the fact that Hugh - who was in Comedy - didn’t know his lines, and even though he was forced to do the showing with book in hand, he STILL DIDN’T KNOW HIS LINES! Not that I’m blaming the outcome of our show on him, but it certainly didn’t help. I was pretty proud of myself at one moment because I messed up my monologue by jumping over lines then going back and fixing them, but not even Michael noticed. During notes at the end, Richard commented on how difficult Luciana is to play, so it was nice to have him acknowledge it. In any case, it felt good for it to be done, and now we don’t have to worry about it anymore.
Tags: london
What is O2?
Will you ever say what scene you are doing with Geoff? You always talk about it but I still have no idea what it is and can’t imagine it.
Also, when you come home, you’ll have to learn a bit more about Freud and his daughter Anna and even though they are dinosaurs in terms of advancements in psycho-analysis, they are still majors historical figures in that field and have allowed recognition and improvements in the study of “l’inconscient”. So, in my book, you can make fun of them once you know them better.
Thank you again for this entry. I am discovering it lying in this beautiful king bed at the Mission Inn Resort where we’ll be celebrating the wedding of your uncle Chris in a few hours.
Everyone is sending you kisses and love