French
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.

Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"

Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.

English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.

Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.

Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."

Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.

*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune

This should be the last post about my recent trip to London. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I visited Westminster Abbey. Photographs were not allowed inside and I'd previously taken some photos of the outside on another trip, so I only took one on my visit there this time. It would probably be better to post this on Monday or to have posted it on Thursday, but this photo is a portion of the wall above the main door at Westminster Abbey displaying the statues of 9 "martyrs," according to the tour guide. I've captured 3 of them here, the one in the middle being Martin Luther King, Jr.:

( Cut for photo )

I think I mentioned in my last post, too, that I'd gone to the Novello Theatre Saturday night, which was the closing night, to see whether I could get a return ticket for Hamlet, but there were none to be had by the time I arrived. So, I wandered around central London fairly aimlessly on Saturday night (coffee shop, bookstore, etc), but returned to the Novello Theatre, which really was on my way back to the hotel anyway, at the time the play was due to be over.

( Read more about chasing David Tennant )

If there is anyone reading this who might like to see Hamlet on DVD, please sign this petition. (For those on Facebook, joining the group on Facebook isn't the same as signing the petition. I think the Facebook group is mainly for updates. According to the latest update there, though, Michael Boyd, the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been in contact with the petition's author and is reading the petition with interest.)

Sunday, which was my last full day in London, I went to see Twelfth Night. This is the story of a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and find themselves in an unfamiliar land, each thinking the other is dead. The sister, Viola, passes herself off as a boy to work for the local duke, Orsino, and is sent on his behalf to court Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (as the boy, Cesario) while Viola falls in love with Orsino. There are several other characters in the households of Orsino and Cesario involved in side storylines, one of which involves making Olivia's steward, Malvolio, believe that Olivia is actually in love with him. (A mean trick, I thought, but I guess it would have played well to people who were victims of a class system.) It turned out that my ticket for Twelfth Night was very good, row K in the stalls, and I really enjoyed it.

( Read more about Twelfth Night )

Overall, the Shakespeare audience seems tougher than the musical theatre audience. Neither of the 2 Shakespearean plays got a full standing ovation, but Oliver! did.

Sunday evening, I was sent to a French restaurant at the Covent Garden Market for dinner by the hotel's concierge, who was French. As I was looking around the Market area for the restaurant, I came across a sextet who were performing in an open area of the Market near a pub. (Some of the pub's patrons were actually eating and drinking outside, despite the cold.) I sat and watched them for a few pieces (something by Mozart, "The Can-can", and the opening of Carmen) and gave them a couple of pounds. I also took a picture:

( Cut for photos )

Hamlet closed with its last performance last night. I thought I'd try to see whether I could get a return ticket because...why not? However, I later heard that people had lined up for return tickets beginning the night before, so it's not surprising that I didn't get one when I went to the theatre only 45 minutes before the show was due to start.

When I met Peter De Jersey from Hamlet the other night, I asked whether he'd miss it when it was done. He said that he wouldn't because he was bound to work with everyone from the production again at some point or another and he was excited to be moving on. Not being very gifted at small talk, at the time it didn't occur to me to ask what he would be doing next. Instead, I asked whether that indicated that the community of actors here was small. He responded that he didn't think so, but that there were a lot of projects over the course of time. Now, I'm wondering how true that is...

As I mentioned previously, after meeting Julian Bleach and having him tell me that he was playing Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver!, I had the tune for "That's Your Funeral" running through my head all day Friday, though I couldn't remember most of the words. So, I figured I'd try to go see it. Why not, eh? I was able to get a ticket to the matinee performance yesterday. It turns out that it was starring Rowan Atkinson, whom some may know as Blackadder or Mr. Bean, as Fagin. It also starred Burn Gorman, whom I know as Owen Harper from Torchwood and jaderabbit knows as Mr. Guppy from Bleak House, as Bill Sikes. (I have yet to see that version of Bleak House, but intend to watch it sometime.) Although neither Blackadder nor Mr. Bean fit my sense of humor exactly, Atkinson was quite funny as Fagin. I really enjoyed his rendition of "Reviewing the Situation" and there was a new twist to Fagin being concerned about Oliver seeing his stash of jewels. He seemed to be enjoying wearing the jewels, including a tiara, quite a lot, so when he discovered Oliver awake, it seemed as if he was as concerned about Oliver having seen him try on the jewels as he was over whether Oliver had seen where he kept them. *lol* Bill Sikes as a character is harder to judge because there's nothing humorous or subtle about him. I will say, though, that I thought Gorman had the presence to pull it off, which surprised me. The woman playing Nancy, Jodie Prenger, had been chosen for the part in a competition similar to "American Idol." She had a good voice and wasn't inappropriately bright or cheerful as Nancy, unlike what cynodd and I noted in our old high school's production of Oliver! this past spring. (To be fair, I'm not certain that any average high school aged girl would really understand Nancy's situation. I certainly didn't when I participated in Oliver! many years ago.) At the production I saw, Oliver was played by Harry Stott and the Artful Dodger was played by Ross McCormack (based on their photos in the program). I thought that the boy playing the Artful Dodger was particularly talented and fun to watch.

But, back to Julian Bleach...it turns out that he played both Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, and Dr. Grimwig, the doctor (obviously). I was sitting as far back as row S in the stalls, but I'd never have known him to be the same person I met the other night, if he hadn't told me. Knowing it was him, as I did, I could say that his nose was the same. Otherwise, he looked very cadaveric (which fits an undertaker, I suppose) and moved as a nimble charicature of an illustration in a version of Dickens's book. He was very funny, too, as Mr. Sowerberry. When I got back to the hotel, I decided to look him up on the internet to remind myself what he really looked like. Here is a photo of him from the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest a few years ago. As I was looking for a photo, though, I came across his "filmography" and discovered that I'd seen him before on television: he portrayed Davros in the finale of Doctor Who, series 4, and the "ghostmaker" in a series 2 episode of Torchwood, "From Out of the Rain" (the evil circus episode). It's a shame I didn't know that at the time I met him or I'd have told him how creepy I found him in Torchwood. Hopefully, he'd have taken that as a compliment. ;-)

So, given the number of overlapping actors in just these few shows, it's hard for me to believe that the theatre community is really that large...

ETA: I said there was nothing humorous about Bill Sikes, but that's not entirely true. The way he pulled his loot out of various hiding places on his person to give it to Fagin was done in a very amusing way... Also, Gorman received quite a few boos from the audience during the closing bows. However, he smiled at it, so hopefully that was a good thing...traditional or something.

As I'm spending this evening in a hotel room, I thought I'd take some time to write about my trip to London, so far. I'm here to see Hamlet and Twelfth Night. On arriving Wednesday morning, my main goal was to make sure I was rested enough to enjoy the performance of Hamlet last night. Fortunately, even though I arrived at the hotel hours before their normal check-in time, they had a room for me and I was able to take a nap. I have to say that I didn't do much else on Wednesday - just wandered around central London on foot (everything is so close that I wouldn't have bothered with the Tube in the past had I known), had dinner, and stopped in at a Waterstone's Book Shop to get a copy of Twelfth Night. I had plans to read it before I saw the performance, as it's been more than 15 years since I read it. (Although the Royal Shakespeare Company's Manifesto on learning Shakespeare emphasizes active involvement in the plays, either acting or watching, which I don't dispute is a good thing, I personally learn better by reading than I do by hearing. Given the rapidity of speech from good actors, the accents, and the difficulty of this older version of English, I'd like to make sure I understand it.) However, I haven't yet started reading it...I felt too tired for Shakespeare Wednesday night, so I just read a bit further in A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, which jaderabbit and her husband gave me to borrow when I visited them in November. (I'd have gotten to it sooner, but I was reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and was very busy with the holidays. So, I'm about 150 pages into it and was interested to see that lunas_ceiling just posted her thoughts on it. I don't want to read what she wrote until I'm finished with it, though. Unlike cynodd, I never skip to the end! *lol*)

( Read more... )

Seeing Hamlet live, being performed by excellent actors, was a thrilling and enthralling experience. The only problem with it is that you can't see it over again whenever you want, like a film. It's performed, the memory fades, and then it's just...gone. But, at least I was lucky enough to have seen it, unlike countless people who couldn't get tickets because they didn't queue up at the box office the night before or couldn't get through the phone lines during the 2 hours between when the box office opened and the tickets sold out (the website totally crashed with the number of people trying to access it).

As there seems to be a great demand to see David Tennant performing Shakespeare these days, this video of him performing a scene from Measure for Measure for a documentary on Shakespeare has popped up on YouTube (via http://www.david-tennant.com/):


As described at the beginning of the video, the camera work in this piece was improvisational and (not described at the beginning of the video) subsequently not very good. Still, it was interesting to see Tennant playing a slimeball. I understand that he has a fairly good-sized body of work playing slimeballs, but I haven't seen any of those performances, except for Barty Crouch, Jr.

For something completely different, check out this film short: ( Behind the cut )

I want to get down more of my thoughts about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet before I forget everything…it’s already been a week! Actually, it seems even longer, since I’ve come home and gone back to work since then.

First, if it wasn’t obvious from my other post, I loved it! I wish I could see it again so that I could really solidify my thoughts about it. As cynodd knows, I usually watch the things I love over and over so that I can pick up new details each time I see them. Often, I enjoy something more the second time because I feel tense the first time I see it, if I don’t know what’s going to happen – a second viewing is more relaxing and I can take in more. Obviously, that’s not such a problem for Hamlet. What native English speaker isn’t already at least a little familiar with what happens in the play? Also, before seeing the performance, I prepared by reading Hamlet in my college text, The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. But, really, it’s an entirely different experience to see it performed than it is to read it! I was hanging on every word; although, part of that was because the language, which is naturally difficult in structure and vocabulary, was being rattled off by the actors at a rapid pace…and they had accents. ;-) All of that contributed to me having to use a lot of concentration to get as much out of it as possible. Still, I loved every second of it!

The following is my own take on the performance along with some questions about the characters and their motives.( Read more... )

ETA: After finishing my summary, I went back to find another review I'd seen by a non-professional critic here. (I hadn't read it when I wrote this post.) Overall, he seems more familiar with the play than I was while seeing it, so he was able to notice more. He places Hamlet's interaction with Polonius, ending with "except my life," after the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, which is probably correct. It seems that he saw it the day after I did, so there may have been some differences - I doubt there would be anything as drastic as changing the order of speeches, though.

ETA (10-3-08): Here is a link to the review from FlickFilosopher.

Just got back to the hotel room after seeing Hamlet. It was definitely worth renting a car and driving to Iowa City for (see here)! :-D The seats were excellent - at the same level as the stage and with only 6 rows in front of us. The actors often ran up and down the aisles near our seats (I was sitting at the 3rd seat in from the aisle). During the scene featuring Ophelia's funeral, David Tennant was crouched in the aisle as Hamlet hiding to watch the funeral procession. He was close enough for me to see the masseter muscle in his right cheek moving, as if he was clenching his teeth. I'm unsure whether he was playing Hamlet as mad or only acting mad - I think a case could be made for either. I tend to think the latter, but that's what I always think when reading Hamlet, as well... Overall, people seemed to laugh at Hamlet's madness a lot more, while the reaction to Ophelia's madness was dead silence - could have heard a pin drop.

I'll write more later, since alisel_kat is about to pass out from fatigue...

For the first time yesterday, cynodd and I actually planned well enough in advance that we, along with crabbydragon, were able to watch 2-1/2 episodes of Doctor Who during Her Royal Tininess's nap! :-D They were, from series 2 (still cjmr's and d_84's DVDs): "Tooth and Claw", "School Reunion", and "The Girl in the Fireplace". HRT woke up during "The Girl in the Fireplace", but it worked out because it's about a pretty female French aristocrat in the 18th century whom the Doctor saves after making a dramatic entrance on a white stallion. HRT is in her Princess Phase, of course! (Last night, she was lamenting that they couldn't live in a pink house, while she sat in her little pink & purple chair wearing a pink T-shirt with flashing red lights that had a picture of Disney's Cinderella, Belle, & Ariel on it... *lol*)( Read more... )

I'll end with this blurb from Neil Gaiman's blog. In anticipation of David Tennant's portrayal of Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he has written this spoof of the Doctor doing Hamlet:

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"