Autumn Comes

Some years go out with a bang, others with a whimper. Last year was the one- both an extraordinary relief to start over again, and a horrible upheaval at having to say goodbye to so many people I’d really come to love. This year is the other. There are certainly people I will miss- SA and Shamsi in particular- but no one whose life was so intensely tied into mine. The queer thing about last year was that, as soon as everyone was gone, life got very calm and quiet- in fact, this has been one of the most peaceful years of my life.

The thing about autumn, and perhaps the reason I have always hated it, is because it’s when things change. Autumn is when life usually finds some way to go caddywampus, and I don’t do change, not gracefully at least. It’s like watching a storm roll in, standing in a field and just waiting for the lightning to strike. When it hits, it still hurts, but you at least knew it would happen. This year has been pretty classical, but after a year of nearly perfect calm, I’ve been able to pick myself up and dust myself off quite readily.

At this point I have been in York for two years. A whole lifetime has been packed into those two years- every extreme imaginable. What amazes me is that in that time, my feelings about the city haven’t changed a particle. If anything, I love York even more than when I first got there. Not one of the last seven hundred plus days that I’ve been here has gone by without my pausing for a moment to realise who fortunate I am to call this place home. Most remarkably, when things go wrong, rather than wanting to run away, the city has a way of wrapping me up and comforting me. This more than anything tells me that York is indeed where I belong. I hope that never changes.

[P.S. This brings not only the year but this blog to a close. It will be going onto a readers-only policy, so if you want to access it in the future, or read backlogs, please email me and let me know and I will send out the necessary emails.]

There's A Very Fine Line Between Love And Addiction

Last night was the end of Richard III with Lords. Since I realise that I’m famously negative about this year’s productions in general, I’m not going to go into all the problems that beset this show- you don’t have that kind of time. (Because, seriously, we’d be here for a week.) Suffice to say that, after Eyrbyggja Saga I really didn’t think it could get worse, but of course, it did, by far. And, as usual, my misery was shared by the Tribe, all of whom had some involvement in the show.

Our opening night had what our director called ‘teething pains’, which might be appropriate if we had a two month run, but for a four-performance run, it felt a little like taking a show to Broadway before you’ve finished out of town tryouts. Friday night was better, in spite of the fact that I’d spent the whole day running around, trying to sort out our lighting crisis. Yesterday was beastly: we had to cancel the matinee, due to rain, and while we did the evening show, the weather wasn’t stellar. In spite of this, we managed to get almost sixty people in the seats, and we did, overall, break even. (Just. No real profit, and we’re still down by £400 thanks to the spring, but at least it’s not catastrophic.) However, last night’s show was by far our best.

I’m leaving out all the things that sucked and were fucked. Every day had its own little, special hell. James had been saying for about a month that he was planning to audition for a different (real) company in town, because he just couldn’t deal with any more of the bollox. I couldn’t blame him in the slightest, and if it weren’t for the professional necessity of sticking around, I’d leave as well. Yesterday was the coup de grace, though: I came within a moment of telling Rachel to pull my name off the ballot for next year (I’m running for her job as president), telling certain parties to go fuck themselves, and I swore to god I wasn’t going to do this again as long as I lived. I spent Friday night trying to keep James from taking a sword to the director’s head (I’m not entirely exaggerating- I really expected there to be bloodshed by the end of the weekend) and he spent yesterday afternoon reminding me that there are other companies, other shows, and, despite what I tend to think, we don’t actually owe Lords a damn thing. It was not a happy afternoon. (And before you say it, yes, I know there is bullshit in any company. Nature of the beast. I can deal with bollox if it ends in a really great product- I cannot cope with it when the result still sucks, thereby negating the effort and hair-ripping.)

Luckily for me, fury is integral to my character in this show, and I was able to channel a lot of my anger into a snarling, venomous, malicious Margaret of Anjou. Last night was easily my best performance (I’m told it gave people chills, but my sources may be biased). I’m not going to say the show was flawless- it never could have been, because the majority of our problems were created by poor directorial choices- but it was at the peak of what it could be. I never bonded with this cast in the way I did with last year’s people, but there are good people in Lords this year, and it’s a shame some of them won’t be around to work with next year. (And I should add that, as much as the production end of this upset me, I had an absolute ball as an actress. This is one of the best parts I’ve ever had, and it was so much fun. I will miss being Margaret.)

Being done felt so strange. I expected it to be queer, because the end of a show is always a bit sad, and your last performance with any company is emotional. I almost came unstuck when both the cast and the production team gave me flowers as a thank you for my work this summer- I always feel strangely guilty when people give me thanks, like somehow I haven’t done enough to deserve it, or because I haven’t always done my work with a cheerful countenance. But in spite of all this, it wasn’t the queer feeling I’d expected.

No, this was the odd feeling of someone who recognises a deep-seated truth. And that truth is that, however angry I get, however much Lords can make me see scarlet, I can’t walk away. Not out of some professional devotion, not out of a sense of responsibility, but because, somewhere underneath it all, I really love this. I asked James if he had the same strange, disconcerted feeling upon the closing of the show, and his answer was, “Yah... we’re going to do this again, aren’t we?” And that’s it exactly. Even knowing what this year has been like, we’re going to do it again.

Theatre has always been my addiction, the habit I can’t kick. I’ve tried. I’ve given up. And I’m not sure what it is about Lords, why I can’t let it go. I will audition for the other show, because you have to keep your options open, and my dissertation will no doubt take care of a good deal of my need for theatre (the entire run of mystery plays- all fifty four of them- in four years, is quite a lot, assuming they’ll let me do it), but I’m keeping my hat in the ring for the Lords chair, and I will do something with the autumn show, regardless of what happens with the other production. Because there’s something special about Lords- it’s maddening, it’s infuriating, and it’s got me by the throat. I don’t know if it’s love or if it’s addiction, and I’m not sure how you ever tell the difference. But yes.... we’re going to do it all over again.

My Ambivalent Fourth

Ten years ago, if you’d asked me what my favourite holiday was, I’d’ve said it was probably the Fourth of July. What wasn’t to love? It was in the middle of summer, which meant it was likely to be one of the few days of the year when I didn’t have to wear six layers of clothing, and it was the one day where explosives were practically permitted.

(They weren’t really, of course. Only things which don’t leave the ground, like fountains, were legal to be lit where I grew up. However, you could own anything, and since we lived right on the border with another state, where it was legal to own and explode damn near anything, we imported a lot. It got to the point where my best friend would buy so much out-of-state firepower that it had to get delivered in a special shipment, which required a lot of red-tape paperwork. I always thought it was hysterically funny that he could get permission to buy an entire truckload of city-grade fireworks, and no problem, but he had to bring over a police scanner when we lit them off, because that was illegal, and we always made sure to stop if anyone of a law-enforcement persuasion as in the neighbourhood.)

Much as I love explosives, what I really loved about the Fourth of July was that I felt like it belonged to me. I’m DAR and a whole lot of other letters that mean my ancestors got to America really early in the game, and played various roles in creating the nation. Of course the whole country belongs to anyone who claims it as home, but I used to feel like I had a special stake in it, because of those ancestors. Not only get I get to be proud of being American, but I felt that I could be proud that, thanks to my antecedents, there was an America in the first place.

Also, it’s a secular holiday. Holidays are, almost by definition, religious, which means that I have to bow out of them. I’m one of those people who actually believes that Christmas is just that: Christmas, and should be religious; but it also means that, as an atheist, I don’t get to celebrate it. And that’s fair. But the one- and, as far as I can tell, only, apart from the discrimination issues- down side to being an atheist is that there aren’t very many celebratory days that offer up the chance for a good party. The Fourth of July is inherently secular (because as hard as the fundies may try to co-opt it, it’s not actually about their god). It’s the celebration of a nation founded on non-sectarian principles and even- dare I say it?- the ideals of secular humanism. America’s founding fathers came straight out of the Enlightenment tradition, and you don’t get much less religious than that. Yah, I loved the Fourth.

But.

You’ll notice that this is all in the past tense. And you may also have noticed, if only via the title of this blog, that I left that nation and moved to England- back to the parent stem. Not only does America no longer give me the warm fuzzies, but I’ve got my eye out for any chance possible to become a British citizen. If only my ancestors hadn’t rebelled, I’d have it by birth, dammit!

I’m not exactly sorry that they did. I’m only sorry that I’ve had to live through watching the nation those ancestors created get flushed down the bog. They built a country on good ideas, on ideals that were worth living up to, on principles I could comfortably embrace. But the America that I left is a place they wouldn’t recognize. Or maybe they would: they would realise how much it looks like an even worse version of imperial Britain.

Somewhere along the line (actually, it’s not a generic ‘somewhere’, it’s about three days after Wank Day, at about half eight in the evening, to be precise) I went from being relatively proud of my nation of birth to being so angry with it that I couldn’t see straight- so angry that I moved three thousand miles away, to the country America didn’t want to be part of once upon a time. England’s got its problems, no argument there. But England never promised me that it was the land of truth and justice and freedom, and then turn out to be a place of lies, and abuse of power, and repression. It’s the breaking of the promise that I can’t forgive.

The other reason I avoid the Fourth is because flag waving has come to have a sinister meaning to me. Patriotism as a concept is all bound up with the “you’re with us or against us” mentality of a post-Wank Day America, one which waves flags as a middle finger to the rest of the world and anyone in its own boundaries who doesn’t follow a proscribed (inherently Republican and neo-conservative) ideology. Pride in America and being American has been co-opted by a political agenda and a public with no more intelligence or common sense than sheep, and I don’t want to be seen as part of that. I consider my day of activism and protest in Washington to be a thousand times more patriotic than sticking a flag or a yellow ribbon on the back of my car’s bumper. To me, being “against them”, meaning our current regime, is the most patriotic thing I can be or do. Unfortunately, this all means that my joy in the Fourth has become tainted, and I just can’t celebrate it like I used to.

I don’t remember what went on at Constantine last year for the holiday. I vaguely recall Alicia, one of the PhD students and then Brett’s girlfriend, throwing the first annual White Trash Fourth of July party, duplicated again this year. We’re not friends and I’m not keen on the theme, so I’m pretty sure I stayed home. This year, I did go to Constantine’s barbecue. It’s the first Constantine party I’ve been to since leaving- the first one to which I’ve been invited- and so I thought it would be nice to show up, both from a general PR standpoint and also because I hate how distanced I’ve become from the life of CMS. It’s partly just circumstantial- I don’t live in university housing anymore with everyone, and this year’s crowd is slightly strange and sophomoric by turns- and it’s partly my own fault: I’ve always had a tendency to find my own society and then shut everyone else out, and the Tribe, and particularly the heart of the Tribe, has been sufficient for my contentment. But I recognise that being so isolated is not actually in anyone’s best interest, least of all my own.

And it was a nice evening. I got to see some people I rarely hang out with, and since James and Adrienne were off doing other things and James II is in Norway until the twelfth, I was actually sociable. It just seemed strange, to be there in celebration of a nation that broke away from the one in which I reside, which I moved to in part to escape the said offshoot country. But it’s funny: being outside of America, away from the America and Americans who set me teeth on edge and make me want to scream aloud and tase things, celebrating the Fourth seems less offensive. It’s an acknowledgement of the country of my birth, not a shallow, sheeplike following of some political ideology, motions gone through because heaven forbid someone might think you don’t absolutely love America rah-rah-rah. I still won’t sing along with the national anthem, and I still won’t raise my hand and acknowledge being an American, but I also don’t feel a pathological rage at seeing an American-flag bunting on the picnic table, either. Stateside, my fingers would itch for my lighter and some propane. Here, it’s just a bit of wistful nostalgia.

I suppose all expats or immigrants who leave their nation of origin for ideological or political reasons must have these moments of ambivalence. How do you find a respect and, dare I say, love, for the country that created you, even when that country is so terribly broken? How do you honour your heritage and hate what’s become of it? How do you have pride in your homeland when you know it’s doing horrible, reprehensible things, both within and without its own borders? How do you love the nation your ancestors built when you are someone that the current version of that nation doesn’t want?

I don’t have any answers. Mostly, I’m putting my hopes in the November elections. I won’t quite say that I think Obama walks on water, but if the man has an Achilles’ heel politically I haven’t seen it yet. I’m just not sure how much it will take to undo the damage of the last eight years- the damage that turned my pride in my heritage into an endless stream of apology. And, in truth, even an Obama presidency isn’t going to make me want to return to the States; I’m far too happy here in England. But I’d like, someday, to again be able to celebrate the Fourth of July and really mean it.

You Can Never Go Back To Before

In 2003, I was in Ireland for about three weeks. That was my first trip to Europe, and it was wonderful, and traumatic, and memorable, and complicated. It pretty much set the wheels in motion for everything that followed, which, ultimately, lead to my moving to England, and therefore, indirectly, to my being back in Dublin this past weekend.

I think Dublin is a really lovely city, and there’s enough to do and see there that our intended three-day trip the first time turned into the better part of a week. This time, it really was just for a weekend. Adrienne had to look at a manuscript at Trinity, so it was also part business-trip. We didn’t cram as much into it, but I think that’s as much a reflection of the difference in travelling with James and Adrienne, and travelling with Cami. Inevitably, I kept making those comparisons, and as much fun as we had, just being there made me homesick for the life I had, which we sort of built in Dublin, and which I ended up leaving behind.

All weekend, I kept expecting to trip over myself. We stayed in the same hostel, and did several of the same things, like wandering through St. Stephen’s Park, and going through St. Michan’s and Christ Church. We ate breakfast at a table where, five years ago, Cami and I sat up one night, reading If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him, and trying to parse out the future of our rapidly complicating lives. I halfway wanted to go out and track down the person who I was, somewhere within the ether of Dublin: I’m not sure if I wanted to warn her to run away from it all while she still could, or to just say, “You already know how this part of the story ends, but hold on; there is so much joy waiting at the end of that dark tunnel.” Because it did all come out all right, and it’s only in Dublin that I seem to feel wistful for everything that was, or wasn’t, or came unstuck.

I suppose the bottom line truth is that I love my life, and I’m ass-over-teacup in love with York, and I really probably couldn’t, realistically, be much happier, and I dearly and deeply love the people who have been and are part of my York life... but it’s never quite the same. Whatever came up and snagged us, I always felt that my DC family sort of fit in some indefinable, cosmic way, like we’d all been stardust together a million years ago, and I’ve never found that again. And Dublin is where I realise that the strongest.

Maybe you can only find that once in your life, and maybe you have to be really young, because it requires a belief in absolutes and eternity that you lose. Life goes on, and you’ll be happy again- maybe even happier- but you never quite forget.

So Dublin and I have a weird relationship, which, I suspect, is permanent, no matter how many times I may visit it. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying seeing it again. And I got to see some different things this time. Cami and I didn’t bother with Trinity and the Book of Kells, because she’d already seen it, and it has enormous waiting lines. Somehow we were lucky enough to get there at a point where there wasn’t a huge line, and Adrienne’s friend Leslie, who was showing us around (she lives there) teaches at Trinity and was able to get us in straightaway and for free. I have to say, they could lay it out better. There’s no very obvious linear path, it’s sort of a mass stampede, which means you don’t really get to comfortably look at anything. And while there are few things more beautiful than a really gorgeous illuminated manuscript, it’s hard to appreciate that beauty when you’re getting squashed, shuffled, and trammelled in the process. The library room above it, which is sadly more decorative than functional, is possibly the most amazing space I have ever seen, filled three-stories deep in antique books. I would have dearly loved to just browse, but of course everything is roped off and you just get to walk through.

Our truly stellar Dublin adventure is one Cami would have appreciated: she also was one of those people who tends to have good fortune, but what we call Adrienne’s food-karma is outstanding. Ever since the inception of the G&SS last August, she periodically manages to get things for free- accidental bottles of wine, discounts on meals, that sort of thing. Saturday dinner was declared our splurge night, and we went to a lovely restaurant where the food was outstandingly good. As a bit of indulgence, we got a bottle of wine. When we went to get the bill, though, we were quite surprised by how low it was. I noticed a 7Up listed, which I was sure none of us had had, but Adrienne kept insisting that I did. Since I knew damn well that I hadn’t, I figured she must’ve spotted some absence on the check and wanted me to shut up, so no one would question it. It wasn’t until we got outside and were a couple blocks away before Adrienne fully realised what had happened. We’d been given the wrong bill. Not only were we not charged for the decadent bottle of wine, but our bill was half of what it should’ve been. (And, no, we did not go back and rectify the situation. Somebody else’s mistake is our good fortune, and I don’t believe in looking gift horses in the mouth.)

(Adrienne also has wine karma with things like the bottle of port, of which I’ve probably made mention. Only Adrienne could find a bottle of 1963 Quinto de Noval Nacional- the second-best vintage on record- for £90, instead of £300-1500 it usually commands. And, yes, it is sitting in our liquor cabinet. And, yes, we are going to drink it, when Obama becomes president or Adrienne finishes her PhD, whichever comes first. Or if we are so depressed about the election that we need consolation.)

Other Dublin sites we visited: Christ Church Cathedral, now no longer under scaffolding and construction, and with one of its amusing treasures revealed: a cat and rat mummified together inside one of the pipes of the old organ. O’Connell Street, which is where the monuments and the GPO are. The Ha’penny Bridge and the Liffey in general. St. Stephen’s Park, which is really lovely. Café en Seine, an unassuming little sidewalk café on the outside, and a sprawling, enormous, gorgeous Art Nouveau restaurant inside. The old-fashioned geology department building at Trinity University, where animal skeletons greet you at the entrance, and where I photographed slump-cone and core-samples as a joke for my father. A couple pubs, one of which had the largest menu of international beers I have ever seen.

Of course we went out for the ubiquitous Dublin Guinness. It really is better in Dublin than anywhere else (though I confess I had a cider- which I will prefer to almost every beer). Like everything else about Dublin, however, I realised how much of the novelty had worn off. Pubs with decent beer are quite accessible here in York. And while it was tremendously exciting to go into the pubs on that first trip and hear music- music that I knew, music from the earliest recesses of my memory- now I am so spoiled by my life here that I mostly thought that it wasn’t as much fun as, say, going out with James on a Friday. I think I wanted to be as impressed by Dublin as I was the first time, but of course that just wasn’t possible. Everything that was so amazing and magical about that first trip to Ireland- being in Europe, knee deep in history and culture every time you turned around- is now, not old hat, exactly, but an everyday part of my life. I’m always grateful for it (not a single day has gone by yet that I haven’t had at least one moment of sitting back and just thinking about how incredibly lucky I am to live in this most beautiful of places; for rather than becoming complacent, as I did with Washington, I fall in love with York a little more every day). But it’s comfortable now, rather than awesome. I no longer want to kneel in awe at every six hundred year old building: I work in one.

More than anything, this trip reminded me of how much has changed, how much I have changed. It made me wistful, but, too, like so much of my life, it was like a closing of the circle. This was a perfect example of the old adage that you can never step in the same river twice. And a good reminder that no matter how lovely and beautiful it was, you really wouldn’t want to.

Weekend In The Country

(I’m a few weeks behind in getting some of these entries posted, due to one thing or another. Which may mean that you’ll get a whole lot of stuff to read at one time. Enjoy!)

One of my goals for this summer is to see more of England. I’ve done more travelling abroad than I have in my own damn country, for which I feel rather guilty. Admittedly, even this summer, most of what I’m doing seems to be here in Yorkshire, but even so, it’s something. Not that I don’t adore York, but one does need variety.

All my life, I’ve fancied myself a city girl. I was born in a city, and raised with something of an expectation that I would be returning to one as soon as either I grew up or my parents could find a way out of small-town America. (I think they’ve got used to it by now, but my formative years are memorable for Mum and I, in particular, being ready to chew our own legs off to get out of the trap.) But I am a creature of extremes, which means that I also really love the country. People always seem surprised that I should have an outdoorsy streak in me. I love being outside, and nature, and going hiking (gently, at least), and above all I really, really love going camping. I love it more now that “going camping” doesn’t actually translate to “pitching a tent in Door County and then spending the days working like slaves at Grammy’s house for two weeks”. So I was looking forward to, someday, having the chance to go camping here in England, to getting out of town, out into the country, and the joys of things like cooking over a fire and sleeping under the stars (well, under the canvas of a tent, under the stars- England is way too rainy for me to risk actually sleeping outside).

I’m not sure when, or why, James II asked me about going along out to the folk festival at Robin Hood’s Bay. It’s the annual event of the society on campus, for which he is president, and I was only too delighted to take him up on the offer, not only because a weekend of music is my idea of happiness, but because it was a weekend of camping and listening to music. For him, of course, it meant playing; but I’m sort of like his musical appendix: constantly present, and relatively harmless, but absolutely useless. (My violin skills are years away from seeing the light of day, and although I am slowly getting comfortable singing around the heart of the Tribe, I would not be so cruel as to inflict that upon strangers.)

There were originally supposed to be about eight people going along, but one by one they dropped out, due to work or illness, until it was just me and James, and two girls neither of us really knew. They’re from India and Pakistan, respectively, both bio PhDs, and in the early stages of learning to play classical Indian music, so, like me, they were along to listen, not play. They were both really nice, although, as may be expected, they spent a lot of the weekend off doing their own thing and left James and I to ours.

You can’t get to Robin Hood’s Bay straightaway on the train- you can’t even get to Whitby that way. We had to take the train to Scarborough, with James and I sitting in the doorway with our huge collection of luggage, because our obscene collection of baggage wouldn’t fit in the storage racks. We were supposed to get a bus from there to Robin Hood’s Bay, but there was apparently a traffic accident on the main road and we ended up having to be routed through a stopover in Whitby. England doesn’t have multiple direct routes to everywhere, like the States; and the idea of multilane highways is relatively nonexistent. So you have to plan a bit more. But we made it to the village eventually, and from there it was only a short hike to the campground.

Now, I’m used to campgrounds in America, which are invariably set up with sites designated quite obviously. There are posts with numbers on them, and rock patches for RVs, or bare areas cut into woods which separate spaces one from another. This was nothing like that. A farmer apparently decided to let one of his fields as a grounds some years back and over the years he expanded it- first there were two fields, then there were two fields and a washroom, now there are two fields for tents and one for RVs, and washrooms with full showers, and sinks, and the whole nine yards. But it’s still just a field where you plop down rather haphazardly, no designations or separations; you’re all just sort of on top of one another. And there are no fire rings, so you can’t have fires good and proper, which I confess I missed.

Pitching camp was a cinch; and then we headed down to the village. The road down into town was a pathway through cow fields, literally. It was my first experience climbing over stiles good and proper- one simply cannot be graceful about it. At the end of the pasture was the most lovely walkway through forest, a tunnel through a canopy of trees, all green and hidden and cool and beautiful, with a little stream running at the bottom of a small ravine on the side. And at the end of that was the town.

Robin Hood’s Bay isn’t like any town I’ve ever been in. It’s right on the edge of the sea, with the sole road- you can’t even call it a high street proper because it’s the only street- terminating in a sloping drive from which to launch boats. The whole village is built up on the hills and cliffs above that, and all of its streets are mere snickleways, delightful little paths that twist and turn and get you hopelessly lost. It’s easy to understand why it was a haven for smugglers back in the day. Most of the houses, which are built one on top of the other, an architectural symbiosis that would be impossible to diagram- in some of them you enter one building and end up above stairs in another- are cottages to let, charming little places lacking only in permanent residents. I have no idea what the ordinary population is, but I fancy it can’t be that large, given how much of the town seems to be rented. Some of the paths or houses look straight down into the ocean, and I’m told that on a truly stormy day even that high above the water one can feel the spray from the water. Of course, the ocean is tidal, and at high tide there’s no beach at all- the ocean laps right to the base of the village- but at low tide there is a bit of a beach, and lots of rock jetties, and tidal pools full of tumbled rocks and seaweed and little fish.

Eventually we headed to one of the pubs to get dinner and grab seats before the entire folk-music contingent touched down for the weekend’s kickoff event. At home, folk nights vary quite a bit, depending on where you are and what night it is. Wednesdays down at the pub on North Street, or Thursday nights periodically at the Black Swan, are more like individual performances- people sign up and each gets a turn to do a song or two, and some people, like Adrienne, do poetry readings. Fridays are just a general jam session, where somebody starts playing or singing and everyone else sort of joins in if they either know it or can improvise. The Friday night in the Bay was the performance type, but it was mostly singing, and it was sort of understood that songs with choruses where everyone could join in were preferred. We were probably the youngest group there, the average age being somewhere in the late fifties or early sixties; when James got up to play his name was announced preceded by ‘young’. It does seem to enthuse everyone, to see that there is in fact another generation, however reduced in numbers, among them.

After James played his two rounds there we headed down to the pub right on the Bay, where some of the York contingent had gathered to play. I can’t say I actually know these people, because I don’t, but we are at least familiar to one another. It was one of the smaller pubs I’ve been in, and absolutely crammed with people. Sitting down was absolutely out of the question, and it was quite a while before James managed to carve out enough space to play. I really hoped the whole weekend wouldn’t be like that, because I don’t like crowded spaces and too many people make me nervous.

We arguably unwisely decided to return to the pitch the way we’d come- through the woods and the pasture. It had been slightly rainy all day, so it was quite mucky, and we didn’t have a torch, and I feel sure I must’ve hit every hill of cow mess between the Bay and the tent. (We discovered that, in moonlight, my legs actually almost fluoresce, which helped a bit. I am so white.) But it was worth it- the absolute silence of being out in the woods, with only the faint sound of the stream bubbling below, was glorious. One forgets what silence and darkness are when one lives in town.

Next morning we went down into the village once more, where we commenced to wandering through shops and snickleways. There are a lot of used book stores, less expensive than the ones in York, but not much in my particular area of interest. They cater to the holidayers, with lots of bad romances or mysteries. James and I had great fun mocking the really horrible sci-fi/fantasy section- our favourite was a piece of crap called ‘Lord of the Troll-Bats’ (I’m really not making this up) which, upon inspection, was absolute gibberish. I mean, we didn’t even understand what they were going on about. It was possibly the worst bit of bollox I’ve ever seen (and someone is publishing this shite!). I didn’t let myself buy any of the nice cookbooks I found, because the thought of lugging them back to York was too depressing, though that didn’t stop James, who came home about ten books heavier.

There was music and dancing in what passed for the little town square, so we sat and watched that for a while. The sort of traditional/tap-dancing looked like such fun, although I’m not a bit of a dancer, and I’m pretty sure my knees wouldn’t handle it. When that ended we found fish and chips for lunch- not, I need to state, my favourite food. This was nice enough, as fish and chips go, not all heavily battered and dripping, but still too greasy for my taste; fish and chips is something I can stomach maybe about once a year, but that’s it. The British Isles love of deep-fried-foods is completely lost on me; it may be my ancestral cuisine, but I clearly didn’t inherit a fondness for it.

Some random folks invited James along to play with them upstairs in the Bay Hotel, which we did for a while, and then he got snagged by a group setting up to play outside in the square, who were in need of a fiddler. He was quite in his element, really, with a whole crowd of people around and improvisational playing. I, of course, had no part in any of this, save to keep an eye on the bags and our pints, and tap my toes and simply enjoy. But I loved it, I really did. I love live music more than just about anything, and I have always been the sort of person who prefers to quietly bask in others’ reflected glory than to seek any of my own.

In the evening, after dinner in camp (we’d brought a gas ring to cook on, and, yes, you can cook a passable marshmallow over a propane stove), James and I returned to the set around the patio overlooking the water, where he was the only person playing violin again, so he had some further moments of glory. It was a really warm night, and there was something absolutely magic about sitting on that land over the ocean, with music in the air. My cup of happiness was utterly brimful. I got a lovely video of James playing ‘Ashokan Farewell’, which he always plays (it’s my favourite piece on violin); the only problem is that my ‘new to you’ camera (formerly my mum’s- mine died in the States) doesn’t have sound recording capabilities, so he’s going to record it some other time and dub it over.

I wish I had the words to describe how absolutely, thoroughly, utterly happy and content I was, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because sometimes I’m crazy, that I can wrap myself up in those moments of happiness so completely, or maybe everyone has those moments when they know, right then and there, that if lightning were to strike them down then and there, they would depart this life with a smile on their face. I don’t know which it is, and I don’t particularly care. I only know that I think I am incredibly lucky, and I marvel sometimes at how it all turns out. For surely, a year ago, if you’d told me that I could be happy like that (or even where I was) I would neither have wanted to be nor been capable of believing it. No, it doesn’t always turn out the way we think it will. And sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen.

We stayed out quite late that night, first out there on the patio by the sea, and then in the pub with some of James’s acquaintances from York. I love the way folk music seems to work, where one person just starts playing something, and slowly everyone else joins in as they figure out their keys and patterns. It amazes me, how much music one can have stored up in one’s memory (I am totally reliant upon sheet music, thank you, after a decade as an oboist). And how easy it seems for people to just leap in, and on multiple instruments, and feel right at home. Perhaps more than anything else, I admire how casual they are about it. Perfection isn’t necessary. And I wish I could be like that- just playing for love of it, and fuck it if there are the odd flats or sharps or downright cockups. Nobody gets fussed. But I’m just not wired that way.

Sunday was sunny and gorgeous and warm and beautiful. I love few things more than to lie in the grass, with the sun hot on my face, and wriggle my toes and fingers in the cool grass of morning. (James took the worst picture of me ever, doing this.) If I had the sense god promised guinea fowl I’d’ve put on long sleeves and long leggings, and a veil of some sort, or, at the very least, sunblock before even emerging from the tent, but I’m not that sensible (and I’m actually pretty paranoid about keeping myself snow-white- the Victorian ladies usually have nothing on me). It’s hard to believe that such beautiful morning sun can hurt. We had to break camp straightaway after breakfast, and cart our belongings with us for the time we spent in town. Getting back into town, through the cow-path and over the stiles, with that huge rucksack and backpack adding another sixty pounds to my person, was a bit of an adventure, but I managed it; I generally do.

The other girls decided straightaway that they wanted to go see the little town museum and browse through the village some more; James and I decided with equal alacrity that we wanted nothing more than to sit on the sea-wall by the beach and bask; and so that’s exactly what we did. And if I had been happy the previous evening, well, this was being blissed out beyond reason. James went and got us ice cream, and then got out his violin and played there on the beach. If there is anything more pleasant than sitting by the sea, under a parasol, with the lovely, gentle breeze off the ocean, eating mint-chocolate-chip ice cream and listening to music, I have yet to discover it. Passersby enjoyed it and paused to listen, and one little girl stopped dead in her tracks, fingers in her mouth, and stared as if we were an apparition; but I fancy none of them could have been a mite happier than I. It was the perfect moment, the sort of thing you couldn’t script but people often film, and you watch it and know that can never be your life. So it’s always a little disconcerting (but in a good way) when it is.

And that was how we ended the weekend. After that, it was a matter of catching the bus to Scarborough and then the train to York, and then hoofing it home from the rails (well, for me at least; James took a bus, since even he’s not insane enough to carry all that baggage across town to Fulford). I came home with a whacking great sunburn, even though I had put on a shit-ton of sunblock. The repulsively happy post-trip giddiness lasted for the better part of a week, and the burn for about three, and it was absolutely worth it. Camping in England is every bit as lovely as camping in the States (except for the fire thing, but you can’t have it all, and pyro though I be, I’ll swop the fire for the music any day of the week) and I can’t wait for next year.

The Sound Of... Music (?)

Music has always just been a part of my life. I guess it’s part of pretty much everyone’s, but in my case it has been less ambient and more direct. My mother is a professional musician, by which I mean that she teaches music, and plays with various groups, and music has always been part of her life, both personally and professionally. My father sings (and dances) and plays the flute; my very earliest memories of him, and of songs, are being carried on his shoulder around the kitchen, late at night, while he sang Irish folk music (which, by the way, I now realise is so totally not appropriate for children). My sister inherited my mum’s abilities and plays pretty much everything, and has spent a few years as a Jesus Minstrel, making a joyful noise unto various Sunday school and summer church camp kids around the US and the world.

I’m the one Rice who didn’t inherit any of this. Unlike the rest of my family, I have a voice like a castrated frog, and no especial affinity for instruments. I can read music because I played oboe for about ten years, but I have a very hard time with anything that’s not in treble, or not in oboe range (really high or low notes flummox me). I suppose I was competent at oboe, but never brilliant or anything. I’m very good with rhythms and I did somehow manage to be the one person in the family with perfect pitch, but neither of these things is terribly useful since I can’t really apply it.

If I’d had the native family talent, I would be pursuing professional musical theatre, but I didn’t. (Fortunately, I don’t have a complex about being a director because I failed on stage: I never went for the stage, and when someone pointed out to me that my native instincts and talents were more those of a director, I immediately realised the truth of this statement, which my life has always reflected, and I’m much happier in that capacity. I can direct musicals without having to utter or comprehend a note.) But in spite of this, music’s just something I enjoy. On the heels of one of my massive mental upheavals, precipitated as always by personal crisis, I decided to take up the violin. I put it down after a few months, because I went back to Washington and college and my life and family and just didn’t have the time. Last spring, went it all went caddywampus again, I remembered how much that had helped, so I went out and bought myself a violin here in England. It was what I did last spring and last summer, when I just couldn’t figure out what else to do.

And it worked brilliantly. Not because playing made me particularly happy, but because I had to think about so many other things than the cyclic shit in my head, so it took me away from what was eating me alive. Learning- because I am still very much learning- violin reminds me a lot of when I was first learning to drive, and I was certain I’d never be able to keep all the little things juggling simultaneously in my head. A few hundred thousand miles later, I drive quite without thinking about it, even after two years away from my car. Someday I hope violin will seem that intuitive, but just now it’s trying to remember where my fingers go, and what the notes look and sound like, and the timing, and the pace, and where my bow has to go, and..... Right now, it’s not a very pretty thing.

This is very frustrating for me, because although I probably am way more patient than I think I am, I don’t like being bad at things, at least not things that matter to me. Last year, for example, I was absolutely the worst Frisbee player in Constantine House. No matter, since Frisbee isn’t something I particularly care about. But I live a life very surrounded by musical people. My family back home, yes, but here in England, too. James and Adrienne both sing at near-professional quality (Adrienne was an opera major for a few years), our friend Zac is an honest-to-god prodigy, one of those people who can just play anything and also composes, Charlotte and Kate are both violinists (admittedly out of practice) and Charlotte was once a very serious pianist, and James plays violin all over Yorkshire. So it’s a wee bit intimidating, and depressing, not to be one of the cadre of the gifted. Being in the Tribe is like being in the Rice house: I can wish very much, but I just don’t share that gift.

Tonight is one of the rare nights when I’m home on my own, though (James and Adrienne went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, and I couldn’t care less, so the thought of spending cinema money on it was just not gonna happen), which means I actually had the chance to play. An hour later and my arms are seriously killing me, and my left hand fingers are much the worse for wear. That’s the one real drawback to violin: I am exceedingly vain about my hands, and the thought that I’m ruining them for something I’ll never even be terribly good at it is rather vexing. At this point, though, my pride in my hands is taking a bit of a back seat to my pride over all, because it’s inevitable that someday, someone is going to hear me, and I’d rather it not make them run for cover.

In fact, I know it’s going to be sooner rather than later. James has been trying to get me to play when we go out for folk nights for months, and, proof that I am a fool in more ways than one, I finally caved and told him I would play by the end of the summer. (Actually, I originally said June, but May has been hellish for both of us, so we agreed that a postponement was fair.) Which means I actually have to try to get over my phobia of being heard, and it also means that I have to not totally suck ass by the end of the summer. (For the record, I also hated playing my oboe if it wasn’t in the middle of the band. The one time I tried it at Solo & Ensemble, I had a panic attack and hyperventilated, which is just about the last thing you want to do if you’re getting ready to play an oboe solo.) (I should point out that there is in fact another side to this bargain- James is supposed to have the next chapter of his novel on my desk by August. It gives us an excuse to nag one another into doing the things we both know damn well we should be doing anyway.) Should be an interesting attempt. I’m very big on keeping promises, so I’m not sure what I’ll do if it’s getting to the end of summer and I’m still sounding like a cat in a meat grinder. The thing is, I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t like anyone to be witness to me doing anything that isn’t absolutely spot-on, which is also why it’s an extremely rare thing for me to let someone see my writing. James will probably think it all right- he has a far higher opinion of my playing than I do, but he has a higher opinion of everything I do, so I’m not sure I count him as a reliable gauge. I suppose we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Right now, I feel very sorry for our neighbours, who are going to have to suffer through an hour or two of scales and scrapings on a periodic basis. And I feel bad for James and Adrienne, because inevitably I’m going to have to do this when they’re home, which means they will share in the suffering. That is, if I can ever lift my arms again.

The End Of The Saga

We all survived the play last weekend, remarkably. Thursday night was easily the worst opening night of my entire experience, and that is counting Pajama Game when we had a grand total of three people in the audience. We still put on a better show then, even though energy was down the bog. Thursday of Eyrbyggja Saga included more thrown lines than all of my previous years in theatre put together- we probably ad-libbed about forty percent of it, and it just felt dead. It was like having one last, astonishingly bad dress rehearsal.

The old adage that a bad dress means a good run has some logic: a bad dress rehearsal usually scares the shit out of the actors, who then really haul ass for opening. I guess you could say we were just a day behind, because Friday night’s performance was hot. We were dead on, the dropped lines could be counted on one hand, and the energy was through the roof. This was our smallest audience, but the largest group of people we knew- lots of last year’s Lords who are still in or around York came. Saturday was an overly full house and another awesome performance, and the audience was fantastic. We finally seemed to have learned all our lines, got in character, and found the balance of performing and drinking that worked. (I don’t normally advocate drinking during a show- in fact, normally I am dead against it. This show, however, all the rules were chucked out the window long ago, because if our directors insisted on not caring and behaving as unprofessionally as possible, I didn’t see any reason to twist myself into pretzels trying to be even the way I naturally am. I was also sorely in need of a drink, at least Thursday, just to keep my homicidal rages at bay. So James and I went through a bottle of mead each night. At least it’s the drink of the period we were portraying. And, no, we did not go for accuracy and drink it out of horns- I will never be able to use a drinking horn as long as a live, because I can still remember the way Jon’s smelled at James and Adrienne’s wedding party last year. Ugh.)

We had the cast party at Murton after the Saturday show- bonfires in the longhouse and out in the common, with marshmallows and sausages; James brought a whistle and Fernando a drum, so we had improvisational music and danced around the fire and probably got a spiritually closer to the people we were portraying than we ever managed in the show. It wasn’t a late-running thing, thankfully, because it had been one hell of a week and I was exhausted, but it was a nice location. I’d love to do a G&SS thing out there, or just do an overnight camping with the Tribe, because it’s a fun spot.

The aftermath, of course, was getting the money and figuring out just how bad the damages were. I do give Jeremy and Fernando credit: they put together an expense report, as should happen after every show, really, detailing where the money had gone and what we’d made. The only trouble was that they were about £50 off on the actual amount in the cash box, which is a problem, and we’re still trying to figure out how to handle that. And some of the expenses just didn’t need to happen. Like, we always serve refreshments at the interval, and they come from Poundland. Except that they went to Morrison’s, which is much pricier. And they spent as much on having the cast use taxis in one night as they did to get a bus for all of us for two. And I swear the audience must’ve been driven out in limos, because their transportation cost more than the venue and properties put together.

Which, all told, means that Lords lost somewhere in the neighbourhood of £450. It’d be closer to five, but Jeremy magnanimously (note the dripping sarcasm) agreed to eat about £70 worth of the expensive food he bought for the interval. This means they lost more in this show than my initial budget for Apollonius. In fact, they lost more than half their agreed upon budget (which, of course, they went over by fifty percent). How this will impact upon the summer show remains to be seen. I feel bad for Strasz and Kats, having to deal with that, although they seem to be taking it pretty well in stride. We went through the closet for costumes yesterday morning and they seem quite amenable to cutting costs left, right, and centre. I told them about where we can get free staging, and that they don’t need to hire seating, and it appears that a lot of what we have in the closet can either be used or cannibalised. They want to keep their show under £600 (take note, Jeremy and Fernando!), which is a distinct necessity at this point.

So, when it’s all said and sifted, was this a success? Financially, obviously, the answer is no. Personally, I would also argue against it being a glorious triumph, because this show was like a highway to bleeding ulcers. We ripped our hair out and were driven to drink and threatened mayhem more times over this one than any other show I’ve done in my life. (And I thought last summer was vexing!) But the audiences loved it. (James’s parents said it was one of the funniest things they’ve ever seen.) And the cast did have fun, at least Friday and Saturday nights, because at that point, you can’t unscramble eggs and might as well just go for the moment. So it depends upon your definition of success. I tend to take a mixed view of it: the audience had better be satisfied, but I want the cash box to be fattened, too. However, from a purely artistic standpoint, I’m tempted to say that we made the audience happy, and that, in the end, the most important thing.

I Should Never Be Allowed Near Stabby Objects

CBC did a really fantastic series a couple years ago, called Slings and Arrows, about a Shakespearean theatre company in Canada and its characters, problems, and vagaries. It’s brilliant, and if you get the chance to see it, do. One of the characters on it is Richard, the business manager of the company. He is the world’s worst judge of character, and there are moments when he’s an endearing, bumbling nincompoop, and others when he’s kind of the villain of the show. In one of the early episodes, he makes a comment to the artistic director about the director’s lack of business sense. He tells the director that for once he should think of the theatre as a business, because that’s what it is. The audience is supposed to sniff at so uncreative an attitude, for isn’t the play really the thing?

The truth, though, is that theatre- any theatre, be it professional, community, academic, or charitable- is in fact a business. Only in The Producers is the idea of staging a play for a loss a good idea (and that doesn’t work out so well either). For professional companies, of course, it’s most important to come in on the black, because that’s your paycheck, and that’s what pays the grocery bills. For community or academic theatre, it’s not about salaries, it’s about the longevity of the organisation. End up going into the red and you no longer have a company. So you have to run things with the same pragmatic, hardheaded business sense as any other organisation. Sometimes, yes, you can afford to take a small loss, secure in the knowledge that the season’s other productions will make up the difference. But you can never be certain of that, which is why, like any business, a percentage of your yearly budget needs to be maintained in case the entire year is a bust, in which case at least you’ve got something with which to retrench the next year. (Ask any business or financial expert about this: you always need a fund balance/slush fund.) And you do your damndest to make sure your losses are as small as possible. Unlike a professional company, you don’t have investors to take the hit. Go into the red and you’ve ruined the entire company forever. So, in some ways, you need to be even more careful than professional groups.

The trouble is that nobody seems to understand this.

You’ve already heard my rant about the current budget of our current disastrous production. Well, as of yesterday, there’s been a demand (and I use that word very intentionally) for another £200+. When informed that they were already more than a hundred overbudget on a show where the budget was astronomically generous, the threats, whines, and tantrums began. Threats to cancel the entire show. To take it to the cast so that they would stage a coup (which, actually, can’t really happen, given the paperwork involved). It was absolutely the most abusrd display of grade school politics and bullying you can imagine, from men who are in their mid thirties. Rachel is out of town, so she can’t do much here. Pragya very conveniently resigned as secretary last night. Which leaves Adrienne, the treasurer, to try to point out to unreasonable (and in one case, permanently intoxicated) individuals why asking money for a show they already acknowledge has to lose at least £300, is irrational, unreasonable, and irresponsible. (I suppose it’s interesting to note that the people who see it this way are the small cluster of us who have professional/semi-professional theatrical backgrounds. But it shouldn’t have to be. Logic is not the secret province of the professional, nor is amateur synonymous with stupidity.)

I’ve had a migraine since ten this morning, and I can only imagine what Adrienne’s going through. She and Rachel finally managed to touch base, and the money was eventually granted, with the rider that there is going to be a major and unpleasant debriefing after this show closes. But in spite of this, because of the personalities and lack of maturity on the part of the directors, I can almost guarantee they’re going to have a snit in front of the cast tonight. In which case I swear to god I am going to go off. Professionalism has been in the absolute pits this entire run, and this is just the last straw. Our final rehearsal Tuesday night was really good from a cast/acting standpoint, and an absolute disaster from our directors. I fully expect some choice words to be exchanged come Saturday night when it’s all over. James keeps offering to ‘accidentally’ point his sword at the wrong person during the run that night, and since he came rather close to a proper row with Fernando the other night at rehearsal, I’m not entirely sure he’s kidding, nor, at this point, am I tempted to say no. As it stands, I get to carry a sword in the play, and I might just beat him to it. (None of the weapons are live, but a few pounds of tempered steel can still do a good bit of damage, especially when you factor in the livid rage factor. And I am. Livid, that is.)

All of my life, I’ve heard myself saying things like, ‘Am I the only one who has any common sense?’ In this case, thank god, I’m not. I’ve got Adrienne and the Jameses in the same boat of seething annoyance, and I suspect that, where the rest of the cast aware of all the facts, they would at least see the practicality of the situation. Because of the queer social politics this year, the MAs haven’t integrated with the veterans, so they don’t know what our running budget is, or what precedents exist (like directors eating the overage- Jon and I did it happily with Apollonius, and we came in solidly in the profit margin- Jeremy keeps whining that no spring show has ever made money, but I know damn well that’s not true). (I should add that Lords offered to give us the money we’d spent overbudget,since it was only about £50. We declined- we fully intended to make the point that since we decided to spend the money, we were willing to take responsibility for doing so.) But even if there are a lot of people in Lords who probably can see reason, the ones who don’t boggle my mind. How do you get to be thirtysomething and not understand basic fiscal responsibility? Or responsibility at all?

I hope the play will be brilliant, in spite of its incredibly rocky birthing process. I hope we have fun. And I hope I don’t somehow trip while carrying my sword at an eye-stabbing angle, just because, you know, sometimes I’m uncoordinated like that. Especially around people who are rude and insulting to my best friend, and who have no respect for the things I hold dear.

Homecoming 2008

As much as I loved the conference, and as much as I loved getting to see my family, there is no joy quite like that of returning home.

It’s good to be back on British soil, and getting off the train and smelling the lovely spring air of York was an absolute delight. It occurred to me that there’s something a bit peculiar about that, given that a lot of people would say I’d just been home, but I am not more convinced than ever that York is where I’m meant to be. Here I feel peaceful and content, cosy and comfortable. In York I’m safe, and I’m settled, and I’m secure, all of which I can say even after the emotional fiasco of 2007. That fact alone convinces me that, yes, I am home, both in the literal and more cosmic senses of the term.

I love the Villa, so walking in the front door was a very happy thing. I’m glad I cleaned so well before I left, and I think James did a bit more with the tidying up, because it wasn’t just the Villa, but the Villa at its very best. I suppose I could, theoretically, be happier, but it’s hard to imagine. It was also good timing getting in on Tuesday morning: even though I was absolutely knackered after about twenty-four hours on the road, I came home to Kate’s birthday dinner and our last Lords rehearsal before performance, which gave me the chance to see everybody again, and go out that night (I had missed English pubs), and then on Wednesday we had our Snobs luncheon, following by an afternoon of perusing the shops and streets of the beautiful city. This is my recipe for life’s perfection; and because I am, at heart, people-oriented, it was wonderful to see the Tribe again, and everyone else.

Travel is something I’m always going to do, and love, and want to do more of, but I’ve come to realise that its purpose is twofold. I adore getting to see the world and different places, people and things that are not quite like those to which I am accustomed (and at this point America does count as foreign- curiously, within the first twenty-four hours home, James told me that I’m getting an accent on certain words, and I had someone else ask about my ‘Irish’ accent). But it also makes me appreciate home even more (which is a challenge, as not a day goes by when I do not stop and ponder my good fortune at landing in York and the Villa, among people I love so well). I’m not sure what I did to deserve the life that I have here.... but I’m awfully glad to be back to it.

At The 'Zoo

Of all the states in all the world, the big annual medieval conference just has to be in Michigan.

For reasons unknown, Kalamazoo, Michigan (and more specifically, Western Michigan University) holds the world’s largest academic conference on things medieval each year. It’s a godforsaken part of the world, and nobody ever goes there apart from this one weekend, but for one week the place is crawling with people discussing various aspects of pre-modern society. I’ve known about K’zoo for years, because my undergrad medieval professor, Dr Rampolla, went every year. I had wanted to go for the years preceding this one, but first it was the same week as finals, and then I had other conflicts (New Market and Wine in the Woods, perhaps?), and last year I was bogged down in... everything. This year, though, there was no way in hell I was going to miss it.

On Wednesday I picked James and Adrienne up at Midway and we headed east. James had managed to come down with stomach flu two days previously (I swear a garden snail could beat up his immune system) so it was a rather rough journey, but at least he was past the puking stage by the time they arrived at my (rental) car. It’s not a bad drive, really: tedious in the way that southern Michigan just is, and northern Indiana is a pit on part with New Jersey, but it’s only about two and a half hours. We got checked into the dorms, which are exactly that, and rather spartan and miserable. I don’t know how undergrad don’t kill one another off, having to spend an entire year in tiny concrete cubicles, especially without hot water (at least in our building) and with beds that squawk if you so much as sneeze. (Last year, James rather famously commented upon the thought of how many brilliant and eminent medievalists throughout the past forty years had probably had drunken sex in those rooms. Kalamazoo is famous for having once-a-year couples, who meet up for the conference and then go home to their relative spouses, so the answer is probably, several. But they sure as hell weren’t doing anything clandestine in the bed I got- the entire county would’ve known.)

We did a lot of meeting and greeting over the course of the week. Adrienne always seems to know a million people via the marvellous medium of LiveJournal, and of course she knew people from last year’s conference. James had friends here from the armoury in Massachusetts where he used to work. The only person I knew here was Dr R, but we did manage to have lunch and catch up, which was really nice. I dearly love everyone in the history department at Trinity, and I owe them a lot: they, more than anyone else, really pushed me to come to grad school, and it was Dr R who took my passing interest in the Middle Ages and fanned it into a career path.

During the days we were in sessions of papers. This probably doesn’t sound tremendously exciting, especially if you’re not an academic, but it was amazing. I don’t have the words to explain how incredibly important this week was in my outlook. I’m going home excited about my life and my work, and I’m really looking forward to doing the next degree. Suddenly the thought of a PhD and career in medieval theatre isn’t like being shackled to a mistake; it seems like fun. Of course, conferences represent the thing about academics that I love best, which is the intellectual exchange and the dynamism of bouncing thoughts and ideas off of one another. I’m not a people person, but I am at my absolute best when I’m working with like-minded individuals, either in concert or in friendly and complimentary opposition. This week was a much-needed tonic for the horrible burnout of a year fraught with the MA and the nervous breakdown. I don’t even have the applications for the next degree finished, and I’m excited about getting to work.

Nobody did anything on the York Cycle in specific, which is of course the aspect of medieval drama with which I’m most intimately acquainted. I heard a couple of papers on the Chester Cycle, one of which was about the use of feasting and food within the play.. It covered everything from the possible interpretations (the author argued that real food was probably used, rather than props or mime) to the secular/sacred implications of both the presence of feasting in the text and the literal use of food on stage. This is the kind of thing I find fascinating: I’m not tremendously interested in the manuscripts as pieces of literature, but in medieval drama as drama. They’re plays, and their production and performance is, as far as I’m concerned, the most important issue. And it’s fun because it forces me to think about theatre in different ways from the relatively representational style in which I usually work. Perhaps the note that interested me the most was the discussion in both papers about the ways in which Chester found ways of continuing to stage the plays, even after the Reformation, when the political authorities tried to quash them (they eventually succeeded). By trying to recast religious plays in a secular light, they gave the plays a longer lifespan than the politics of the era would have liked. And the thing in that which is so intriguing is that it suggests that the plays were important to the populace beyond their meaning as religious works. Since religion isn’t really my baby, even in the Middle Ages, I find that exciting.

Another pair of papers discussed the writings of Hardin and Chambers, and the validity of Hardin’s dismissal of Chambers’ evolutionary interpretation of developments in medieval theatre. Just the idea of putting scientific theory to artistic/creative processes is kind of interesting (and, I would argue, a limited option). I spent most of last year reading these two books, so I’m intimately familiar with the issue. This made me want to go back and re-read them, though. (And for the record, the Darwinian argument of development, which I have always found the more rational, is the one generally out of favour, due in no small part to Hardin’s subsequent writings.) This lecture would have been indescribably tedious for anyone who doesn’t do medieval theatre, and that was another thing I enjoyed about the conference: everything is so tremendously specialised, that you get to feel damned clever when you do understand things. I’m not sure you ever get over that. (Dr R was saying that she’d found herself referenced in a random book she picked up, and in spite of years as a tenured university professor she still gets a bit giddy over that.) It’s both fun and inspiring to realise that there are other people out there who know what you’re talking about, and with whom you can share ideas.

Of course, it’s not all work and no play. The sales booths are a book lover’s dream come true, at least, if your thing is medieval history. I am fiscally poorer, but my shelves are academically richer, for a binge buy I did of books that I used during my MA, or ones that I wanted to find and couldn’t. You don’t even really feel guilty about it, because it’s a career investment. Surely overdue library fines add up, when you need to keep something past its deadline, and you might as well just buy the damn thing. I had planned to let myself have at least one ‘fun’ purchase, but I didn’t end up doing it. One of the books I had wanted, James bought, so it’s in the house; the other I can get at the uni library and photo-copy, and I never spend money on what I can get for free. And after the conference, buying books for work also seemed like fun, anyway.

Other activities include the annual mead-and-ale tasting, where Adrienne got a wee bit tipsy; it wasn’t as good as the meads I can get at home, although she says it was better last year. Pseudo Soc is another bit of academic amusement- people give proper academic papers on made-up, ridiculous topics. You have to get there insanely early- we were there two hours in advance, and everyone orders in pizza and beer and just sits there; it’s probably the best-attended session of the whole conference. (Apart, possibly, from the Terry Jones lecture on Richard II, which was extremely well done, and another fairly packed house.) And there is the infamous Dance on Saturday night, which is really something you go to watch. Academics are strange people, and medievalists, it seems, are not, on the whole, genius dancers.

It’s been an exhausting week, but an exhilarating one. I definitely want to make this my annual pilgrimage to the States, even if it is decidedly awkward as far as seeing my family goes. But it’s worth it for the kick in the rear, for the recharging of the mental and academic batteries, which I think one desperately needs periodically. I never thought I could be excited about medieval theatre again, after last year, and that, if nothing else, is beyond price.

'Wicked'.... Is, Mostly

It was originally anticipated that I would probably not see my family at all while I was in the States, but I managed to fly in a few days early. I stayed with my sister Kay, which is always interesting, given that we spent most of our childhood hating one another, and, as my mum says, we have reached the upper levels of tolerance at this point. She’s in seminary in Chicago, which may unto itself explain a lot about why we’re not close. My parents, who are, by contrast, two of my favourite people in the whole world and arguably the very closest of my friends, came down for two days so we’d all get to spend at least a bit of time together. I hadn’t seen them in almost two years, but I was much relieved to find them unchanged.

When I lived in the States, Mum and I would take semi-annual trips down to Chicago for opera weekends. The Lyric has these really nice out-of-towner packages, where you come down on a Friday morning and stay at a rather nice hotel in town, and binge out on something like three or four operas from the season over the course of the weekend. I love opera, but Daddy’s not terribly keen on it (at least, he thinks he’s not, although he’s a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, and I’ve seen him giggle his way through Marriage of Figaro on multiple occasions), so instead of opera we decided to go see a musical, which is something the entire family can agree on. I’m the only one of us who hadn’t seen Wicked yet, so we went to that.

I should mention that even though I haven’t seen it, I’m extremely familiar with the soundtrack and probably as well informed about the show as you can be without actually watching it. I’ve also read the book by the same title, which is the source text. (I did not really love it. While I admire greatly the idea behind it, I didn’t think it lived up to its promise in terms of writing or structure.) Kay and Mum have each seen it a couple of times; it’s Kay’s favourite show and she is bat-shit crazy about it. After the fact, when Mum and I were giving our critiques, she stuck her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly.

Because while Wicked is a very good show, it is not a perfect show. In fairness I ought to state that I’m a minimalist; I don’t like showy shows: if you’re spending all your time gawping at the tech, at the lighting and effects, you’re not actually seeing the show. It’s very easy to swamp a production in, well, production, especially these days when audiences seem to want all that fluff. Wicked is not Cats, for example, where there is no substance behind it all; nor is it the Hal Prince Showboat, where the rather delicate story of the first modern musical was overshadowed by having a giant boat on the stage (thereby making ‘Old Man River’ Mississippi, which is of great symbolic importance to the play, completely invisible). Wicked is a strong enough- if predictable enough- story that it can hold up to a bit of gewgaw and furbelow. But it doesn’t actually need all of that.

The stage is framed with cut-out gears and machinery, and in the centre of the proscenium arch is a very large animatronic dragon. It does some fairly cool things with smoke, and it swivels its neck, at the downbeat, but that’s all it does, the entire performance. Both the mechanics and the dragon are a nod to the source text, but since that particular theme isn’t really dealt with in the play, it serves no purpose except to say, Wow, look what we can do! (And drive up the budget phenomenally, I’m sure.) And if you don’t know the book, it makes no sense at all. There were also a lot of things that rolled on and off stage rather needlessly. Even though musicals require a certain suspension of disbelief and creativity on the part of an audience, we seem to have forgotten their ability to imagine the characters into different locations, without very obvious, and large, and preferably electronic, signposts.

To continue with getting my kvetches out of the way, the song ‘Wonderful’ is woefully misplaced. The second act is quite dark and tense, and then they throw in a carnival piece that absolutely stops the tension and the action dead in its tracks. Put it in the first act and it would be fine, but it absolutely, under no circumstances belongs where it is. I don’t know how nobody caught this in previews, because it’s neon obvious. (I rather thing ‘One Short Day In The Emerald City’ is another throw-away tune, but I acknowledge the need to give a nod to the film-induced expectations of the audience. And Wicked does do a good job of balancing the imagery expected from the movie without becoming a slave to it.) Axing the last five minutes, and the happy ending, would be a much better decision- this is not a story that wants a happy ending.

All that said, Wicked is still pretty awesome. Don’t go into it expecting the book; the plot is much simpler, a rather standard fare of storytelling. But the characters are engaging, and the music is wonderful, and it is technically spectacular. The lighting is fantastic; whoever did the design, while I think it a little bit much, did some really beautiful work with scrims and gels and gobos. It was also nice to hear a real orchestra, where so many productions these days use synth. And in moments when the production really needed to look like the movie, it did, but in a way that blended in with the rest. Arguably more important, there are some excellent melodies and lyrics here. ‘Defying Gravity’ is a showstopper; while ‘For Good’ can make you a bit choky. (Unless you are my mum, in which case these two songs, and my particular favourite, ‘I’m Not That Girl’, make her totally lose her shit.) There are also a lot of little funny bits in what is essentially a pretty dark show. I’ve always thought of Glinda as reminding my of my friend Cori, who always wanted to be Glinda when we were younger (the film version, that is: she got a poufy pink dress), but I sat through the first two scenes trying to figure out who the character reminded me of, because the likeness was uncanny. The penny finally dropped and I realised that it was like watching an only slightly characterised version of Rachel.

But I think the thing I like best is that Wicked is structured more like a good old-fashioned musical from Broadway’s golden age, rather than the sung-through monstrosities or vomitous revues that have cluttered up New York and West End theatres in the past decade. It’s original, and it’s charming without being either overly clever or overly precious. And I think that, if you’re not like me, and prone to looking at theatre through too critical a lens, you can walk out of there really exhilarated. There’s a degree of depth to it- it’s not going to keep you up nights, but it’s not absolute fluff, either- that you don’t see terribly often in contemporary musicals. Ultimately, this is a production about the grey areas of ethics/morality, which is about as close as you can come to putting the very philosophical aspects of the book to the stage. Is good actually good, is evil truly intended, and how much do fate, circumstance, and general human nature play a part? Those twist and turns, darkness covered by light, are what I think make the best musicals (look at, to give the two earliest examples, Show Boat or Oklahoma!- sure, Rodgers and Hammerstein is sugar-coated, but there’s some actual meat under the cotton candy).

I don’t know that I’ll become devoted to the show and feel the need to see it time and time again, like my sister does, or like Adrienne does with Phantom. There aren’t many shows I love that much. But I’m awfully glad I finally got to see it, and at least, to some degree, understand what my family has been going on about all this time.