Rococo with Richard

We arrived hours early for the production: it’s hard to gauge distance and traffic through SoGlo (South Gloucestershire) so best to start out early.  Our birthday destination was a restored rococo garden, the setting for a frolic through Shakespeare's tragedy Richard III as performed by a traveling bicycle quartet.

‘Only in Britain.

 

The weekend began with morning celebrations amidst a block party celebrating the Queens’ birthday.  My contribution, a deconstructed black-forest cake, was much better in concept than execution.  The rich-chocolate and sour-cream-vanilla layer cakes were lovely, but the cherry butter icing failed to set properly, slumping off  the cake as temperature rose. 

  

I improved on it whilst waiting for my laundry to finish, adding two packs of icing sugar at the suggestion of onlookers in the carpark.  The result was 4th-grade amateur: I shaved chocolate on top rather than making a ganache, covering flaws with cherries and ornamental flowers.

Never mind, it tasted better than it looked.

The weekend’s venue, Berwick Lodge, was far more stylish.  A converted country house with sweeping views over the Severen and a killer afternoon tea-and-cakes, it foreshadowed a nice evening of theater on the lawn.

 

The Painswick Rococo Gardens were created in the 1700s as an ornamental setting for casual parties and frivolous behaviour.  Restored in the 1970s, it’s a striking arrangement across a narrow valley, with a maze, vegetable gardens, and ornamental pools.

   

The evening of Shakespeare was held in a grassy sward, blankets sat ahead of folks with chairs.  The play was performed by the Handlebards, a wonderful troupe of four actors playing around 41 parts of the play.  They covered it all, but with a lot of light-hearted mugging and joking asides that lightened the intrigue and murder of the script.  Wonderfully engaging, it is well worth attending this summer.

  

A night at the opera

We all decided that we needed to get out more often for social / cultural events: Barry Manilow is in town this summer, Carole King will be fabulous, and Tosca is playing in Woking.  Sung in Italian with English surtitles (translations on a reader board above the stage), Ellen Kent’s production was well reviewed and had the lush sets, professional singers, and full orchestra that would make it memorable.

Opera is a totally new experience for me.  My graduate advisor at Northwestern was a big opera fan, and I offered that I’d like to go see one some time.  If you haven;t been to an opera by the time you reach 21, you will never appreciate opera, he sniffed.  That was enough:” if opera  had that opinion of me, then that told me everything I needed to know about it.  And so the situation stood for 40 years.

We all took the train over (w.wezen on the right) and enjoyed a good Turkish tasting dinner together ahead of the show.  (No alcohol was served, necessitating occasional runs out to the corner store for bottles).  Then over to the New Vic to settle in, close to the stage and able to see it all.

I thought that it was absolutely enchanting.  Although nearly 3 hours long, the production never dragged.  The characters were so broadly drawn that it was all great fun to to follow their contortions and emotions, and the soaring singing was first-rate.

  

The story was confusing in spots (I didn’t pick up on what happened at the end until later when it was explained to me), and the surtitles were summaries rather than translations.  Intermission was a good break to glug some drinks and have a good chat about it all, and I got caught up with the subtleties quickly.

But it was colorful, emotive, and engrossing: really could not have asked for a better evening out together.  Next: Carmen, everyone agrees.

Recognizing Old Souls

The theatrical drama Skylight has moved to the US, bringing Bill Nighy and spaghetti bolognaise to Broadway.   The story describes a the meeting, after three years, of two former lovers.  Their prior relationship ended badly, and the night’s drama explores a possible rekindling. Love, clearly, but also so much that separates them, observes the Times.

I’m intrigued by Bill Nighy, who I used to think could only play  poignant burn-outs in light comedies like Love Actually and The Boat that Rocked.  I saw more depth in him during the Marigold Hotel films and subsequent interviews, though. and I would love to see him fill this stage role.

Then I began to wonder if he was an Old Soul.

Old souls are wise beyond their years:  they have seen and done much, travelled far and met many types of people. These wide experiences build understanding and compassion, a calm affect beneath a world-weary gaze.

Some believe more literally that Old Souls live through a sequence of lives rather than places, their immaterial identity passing from one body to another over eons.  The journey grants wise insight and observant calm, finding peace beyond material things.

Spirituality aside, there are Old Soul qualities that psychologists list: thoughtful, reflective, mature, separate in their ways.  They draw in strangers easily and listen with empathy and understanding.  They savor life’s quieter moments,seeking periods of introspective separation from the ‘real world’.

I’ve known the type.  Their lives are composed as a series of disconnected vignettes, each characterized by its own location, job, friends and relationship.  Every few years, one life is set aside, and another takes its place.  Yet the individual beads fit when joined as a necklace.

I think of the expats I know, their beliefs and perspectives shaped by the places they’ve lived, the varieties of human happiness and pain they’ve met.

I know post-docs and deep thinkers who’ve built reputations and networks out of their skills and friendships across many commissions.

I’ve met many with personal stories of deep love and loss, who never succumb to infatuation or cynicism but search for what’s good and true in everyone that they meet.  (‘and some advice on loving Old Souls)

The Old Souls are always easy to spot at academic conventions and expat gatherings: they relax in a small circle of people, sharing stories and experiences, swapping advice and ideas for their next journey.  They know their gifts and share them easily, so they are always relaxed, insightful companions to have along the road or starting a project.

There’s a suggestion that Nighy is simply a louche: Disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.

I prefer to hope that there is a good reflection of the man inside the parts they play:

One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.  Bill Nighy

London Justice and Cambridge Sunshine

Life is seldom just.

But in the small world of the courtroom drama, it can be.  Under cross-examination, deceptions are revealed; with the clack of a gavel, wrongs are avenged; in the jury room, moral fog clears to mortal certainty.  It’s a satisfying few hours, moreso when a few big names are tossed into the revival of a classic theater.

12 Angry Men is a bit of a 50’s anachronism, fighting battles against prejudice that citizens of the 21st century (think they) have left behind them.  The jurors are prepared to convict a black youth of murder simply for being black.  Only Juror 8, laconic Tom Conti, takes a stand against the conflicting evidence and the biases of the other 11 jurors, eventually persuading them all to join in voting ‘not guilty’.

It’s also a star vehicle.  In securing seats, the w.wezen knew of my fondness for Robert Vaughn (even though we both preferred David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin), here playing Juror #9.  Now 81, he has a small insightful role in the production, but is thoroughly enjoyable as a recognizable presence.

The production is, finally, good drama, with vivid characters locked in close, well articulated, verbal struggles.  Even in the 50’s, I doubt that people shouted at one another as these folks do (they certainly wouldn’t be effective in making their points this way today).  But the arguments and evolution of the play, marked by the slow rotation of the central table, are compelling and engaging.  Even the rants that seem over the top are effective as a period piece.

  

I like a bit of airing to balance the weekend; a train trip to Cambridge on a sunny Sunday scratched the itch.  Clare’s Fellows Garden was open and in full bloom, and the Cam was filled with punters.  A good walk, a little naming (in customary British Latin), and tea along the river completed a good weekend.

 

Monday is back to Poole, back into closing the partnerships and fundraising: the only jobs that matter in the coming weeks.

Dinner and the theater

Following on New Year’s renewal, I’ve been working to get out more – lectures around town, a bit more exploring in London, events to warm the short winter days.  The University maintains a really good notification service for lectures around campus through Talks@Cam, worth subscribing to if you live in the area or consulting when you visit.  The Music and Events guides are much worse, nothing like the Week in/Week uit guide for Maastricht.

Wolfson College held it’s annual Burns Night Formal Hall and Ceilidh last week. And, looking at that sentence, probably everything in it needs translating.  (And, no, that is not me in the kilt, above).

 

Wolfson was my home college at Cambridge; Formal Hall is a formal dinner arranged for the Fellows, Members and Guests twice a week.  Attendees dress up in their college robes (a bit like Harry Potter), sip champagne with the president, dine by candlelight in the main hall, and share spirits from the college cellar afterwards.

   

Burns Night is a traditional Scottish dinner celebrating poet Robert Burns: there are bagpipes, readings from his works, haggis, whisky, traditional toasts, lots of thick brogue and kilts.  And there is a dance afterwards, a Ceilidh, pronounced Kay’-lee and a bit like a barn dance in the US, with more drinking and revelry until the wee hours.

It’s always fun: the toasts are filled with clever Cambridge irony and commentary, the conversation with other Members of the College is always interesting, and the dancers are game but dismal, a good time all around.

And, while in London on business there was time to take in the Pitman Painters, a production at the Duchess Theater about the true story of the Ashington Group.  These are Newcastle miners who invited a university lecturer to teach them about art, then guide them through creating paintings of their own.  Their primitive realistic works became a hit in among critics and patrons, sparking debates about the nature of art, talent, class, and economics.  It’s engaging and thoughtful, sometimes getting a bit preachy but generally capturing the contradictions in these men and their work very well.

A persistent idealism runs through the play, part of 1930’s politics and economics, suggesting that the failures of capitalism could be addressed by a new classless socialism, giving the tools of production to the workers and distributing the benefits equally.  The miners see their work enriching others at their expense, not just separating them by income and opportunity, but relegating them to a diminished class of people.  Some of the best scenes are when they try to reconcile who they think they are with how others see them, proud of their value yet suspicious that they are being used by others. 

Newspaper reviews of the play generally speak of the tragedy of that idealism, how it was crushed during the Thatcher years.  It’s difficult to understand what hope they thought they saw in socialism, it’s not a part of the political vocabulary today in the same way (or, in the US, at all).  But the problems that they rail against remain real and widening.  A little idealism in some alternative wouldn’t hurt.

Experiencing reality (TV)

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I confess to having a soft spot for a good competition / elimination.   Amazing Race, MasterChef are probably my favorite US and UK variants, respectively, but it’s hard to compare US and UK takes on the reality format unless you have two shows built on the same premise airing at about the same time.

Surprisingly, that opportunity came from Art.

Aspiring artists, hoping to break into the big time, showed their works to a panel of three judges, two men and one woman, hoping to be selected for a spot in a gallery exhibition to be attended by wealthy patrons and influential critics.  In the US, the show was Work of Art, airing on cable channel Bravo; the UK featured Show Me the Monet on BBC2.  You can see clips from each show by clicking on the two embeds below.

Work of Art–Episode 4, Part 1

Show Me the Monet–Fiona Cockburn

The BBC program is a bit like Antiques Roadshow: artists bring their work in for the “Hanging Committee” to review.  If they score well on originality, technical skill, and emotional impact with at least two judges, then the work goes on to the exhibition.  Immediately, we learn whether the artist managed to sell it. 

There’s a lot of drama in having each artist judged on a single representative work for less than 10 minutes. These are charged emotional encounters, putting forward very personal works and the artists really struggle to keep composure as the judges dissect them.

I’m absolutely fascinated by Charlotte Mullins perfect hair and unflappable poise, but enjoy art critic David Lee’s remarks the best.  Still, the format is so low-key and the entrants go by so quickly and repetitively, it’s hard to get involved with them, and the show wears thin quickly.

Bravo’s show is more like the Apprentice: artists are given a task (creating cover art for a novel), materials, and a time limit, then judged on the results that they were able to product.  The worst performers are voted off by the critics, and the remainder go to a further round, eventually arriving at an exhibition.

The critics are completely faceless; the engagement is with the contestants who each build a presence and a narrative over the weeks.  The artists have to work fast and are outside of their best medium, so the technical quality of the art feels low and and the participants have little emotional investment in what they create.  There’s relief or disappointment after the judging, but none of the confidence shattering dismissal of  the British judging.

I think that the differences in the shows are reflective of the differences in audiences, the difference in culture.  Britain prefers an examination; the US a performance.  The UK wants art, the US prizes style: one focuses on the work, the other on the individual.  I think it’s a reflection of the respective societies as much as it’s a lens on the artists.

Neither show was a hit with the media: the Guardian and Time were critical, but both Monet and Work are coming back for a second season.  I would prefer to blend the two: the highbrow seriousness of Monet’s judges, the extended opportunities for the artists to show their personality and creativity in Work.

Until then, there’s MasterChef, which is ironically judging as much by artistic appeal as by culinary taste.