So, I'm not gonna be in Assassins. From what I've heard the whole thing is turning into a fiasco, and the show was supposedly going to be put up in three weeks. How were they planning on doing that, I wonder, if they didn't have a lead? In addition to that, I have a great deal of work both for this show and for my classes. So, although I would have loved loved loved being in that show, I will not be doing it. I was listening to the sound track on my iPod recently, the one from the broadway show, and I was getting a little wistful. "That could have been me! I could have sang that! I could have---No, no, you made a decision and you have to stick with it and it will be---aw, man I could have done something so cool with that! Think of what I could have done with that I---no! No. You can't, you have to...eeeeeehhh!!!"
I thought when I got here that I would integrate myself so well. That since everybody speaks the same language I could just make friends. However, I forgot two things: one, I'm kind of shy, and can't make friends too easily. I can make them, but just not very easily. Two, England is different from America. Surprisingly so. Being thrown into a different culture, and, moreover, coming from a country that is the object of more ire and hatred than potentially any other in the world, makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I know this is just a "me" thing and that I could probably meet some more people if I wanted to. Hopefully I will before all this is over. Anyway, that's just "me" all over: I'm in a foreign country, having what will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime exprience, and I'm stil fretting and wringing my hands like a douche. Damn.
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Sunday, 28 January 2007
Okay, this is ridiculous
When I got here I auditioned for two shows. One, the Infernal Machine, which I got into and am now performing as the lead. The other was Assassins. I don't usually sing, but I love the show a whole lot, and since it's a more acting-based show, I thought I could give it a shot. Now, I tried my damndest, but after a week I never got a response from the director. I took that as a rather rude "no" and went on my merry English way.
However, a few days ago I got a facebook message from the director of Assassins saying that my e-mail address didn't work, that she'd been trying to contact me for ages. I gave her my regular e-mail (she got the spelling wrong) and she sent me a message asking if I'd like to play Booth. Booth is, once again, the lead. In a musical. And I DON'T SING.
What the fuck is up, Oxford? For the past two years I've been getting either decent roles in ensemble casts, or bit parts in regular shows. Now I get two huge leads in a row? And one in a MUSICAL? I figure one of three things is going on: one, I've finally emerged from my chrysallis and become a flaming, golden butterfly of an actor; two, the talent here at Oxford is slim-to-nil; three, I'm auditioning for the less competitive roles in smaller plays. I think three is probably the best bet. From what I understand, all the big-daddy pseudo-professional plays get put up in the Oxford Playhouse, while these two are being performed at the St. Catz theater (or theatre). But still. Why'd you spring this on me, England? Why couldn't you have told me you needed me earlier?
However, a few days ago I got a facebook message from the director of Assassins saying that my e-mail address didn't work, that she'd been trying to contact me for ages. I gave her my regular e-mail (she got the spelling wrong) and she sent me a message asking if I'd like to play Booth. Booth is, once again, the lead. In a musical. And I DON'T SING.
What the fuck is up, Oxford? For the past two years I've been getting either decent roles in ensemble casts, or bit parts in regular shows. Now I get two huge leads in a row? And one in a MUSICAL? I figure one of three things is going on: one, I've finally emerged from my chrysallis and become a flaming, golden butterfly of an actor; two, the talent here at Oxford is slim-to-nil; three, I'm auditioning for the less competitive roles in smaller plays. I think three is probably the best bet. From what I understand, all the big-daddy pseudo-professional plays get put up in the Oxford Playhouse, while these two are being performed at the St. Catz theater (or theatre). But still. Why'd you spring this on me, England? Why couldn't you have told me you needed me earlier?
Saturday, 27 January 2007
Sweet tasty jesus-cakes...
I know I just posted an entry today, but something just happened that may force me to re-define who I am. I was on wikipedia (ignoring my work), and for shits and giggles I looked up Chester. Now, Chester is not my ancestral name. I think it was something more like Shuster, but my great-grandfather changed it because he was an electrician and thought the business was anti-semiti. Wikipedia tells me Chester is the county town of Cheshire, England, and has a great deal of history and that those who are true descendants of the Chester name are actually British nobility. There are a number of towns called Chester, and it seems, based on the names of Chesters-of-note, that its far more common as a first name than a last name. But I also learned (and here's the kicker) that it's prison slang for child molesters.
Now, I'd been called "Chester the child molester" before, back in those mud-slinging middle school days. But I didn't think that it was actually a term of common usage. Now, suddenly, I see a bleak and sordid future laid out before me. Better get myself indoctrinated, so I can start the process now.
Now, I'd been called "Chester the child molester" before, back in those mud-slinging middle school days. But I didn't think that it was actually a term of common usage. Now, suddenly, I see a bleak and sordid future laid out before me. Better get myself indoctrinated, so I can start the process now.
It's a little bit depressing...this feeling inside...it's not something I can easily hide...
Oxford has a little bit of a homeless problem. I don't know if they consider it a "problem" or not, since there is a shelter nearby, but whenever you get asked for change a near-consistent three times a night, I consider it a problem. During the day they're usually asking if you want a copy of "The Big Issue," which, from what I understand, is a tabloid magazine that the homeless are encouraged to hawk on the street so they feel like they're "contributing to society." Of course, once the sun starts setting they'll circumvent the whole big issue thing and point-blank ask you if you've got any change.
My thing about the homeless is that I really don't like the "just walk by them and don't say anything" deal. I know I seem pretty cynical, but every cynic is a wounded romantic as they say, and the homeless is a weird soft spot I have. It used to be (say, from ages six to ten) that whenever I saw a homeless person I would spend the next ten minutes either crying or trying very hard not to cry. It's still hard for me to ignore them, and I still end up spending what would probably amount to a poundand a half a week on the occassional attack of conscience.
I know you're not supposed to give money to panhandlers. It's not even an issue really: even people who run the shelters say not to give money out to homeless people on the street. But it's hard for me, and it's especially hard when there's so fucking many of them. Even New York has somewhat curbed its homeless problem (how they did it I don't know, and maybe I don't really want to) to the point where, if you walk a good distance in the daytime, you may not get asked for change once. Sure, you might see the occassional guy with a shopping cart filled with cans, but the point is he's not bothering you (sorry for the levity at the expense of people who are truly suffering). Here, they're very aggressive. Sometimes threateningly so. One time an American (of all the people) touched my shoulder as I was walking and asked, in an oddly articulate but still very unctuous and creepy way, "I'm very sorry young sir, but would you mind lending me a pound?" He had this shit-eating grin on his face, and was very well-dressed for someone asking for change. It looked like he might have been some lawyer who got fired from his job and was kicked out of his house, and he'd burned so many bridges that he just had no where to go and nothing to protect him from the cold except this really nice pea-coat he'd gotten from the Gap.
I write all this because I saw today what was the apex of sadness. There was a homeless man walking with a few copies of the Big Issue in his hand, and only a few feet behind him, following him dutifully, was a German shephard in a torn-up little doggie sweater. I noticed almost immediately that the dog had only three legs, and that one of the sweater sleeves was entirely empty. How do you just walk by something like that?
My thing about the homeless is that I really don't like the "just walk by them and don't say anything" deal. I know I seem pretty cynical, but every cynic is a wounded romantic as they say, and the homeless is a weird soft spot I have. It used to be (say, from ages six to ten) that whenever I saw a homeless person I would spend the next ten minutes either crying or trying very hard not to cry. It's still hard for me to ignore them, and I still end up spending what would probably amount to a poundand a half a week on the occassional attack of conscience.
I know you're not supposed to give money to panhandlers. It's not even an issue really: even people who run the shelters say not to give money out to homeless people on the street. But it's hard for me, and it's especially hard when there's so fucking many of them. Even New York has somewhat curbed its homeless problem (how they did it I don't know, and maybe I don't really want to) to the point where, if you walk a good distance in the daytime, you may not get asked for change once. Sure, you might see the occassional guy with a shopping cart filled with cans, but the point is he's not bothering you (sorry for the levity at the expense of people who are truly suffering). Here, they're very aggressive. Sometimes threateningly so. One time an American (of all the people) touched my shoulder as I was walking and asked, in an oddly articulate but still very unctuous and creepy way, "I'm very sorry young sir, but would you mind lending me a pound?" He had this shit-eating grin on his face, and was very well-dressed for someone asking for change. It looked like he might have been some lawyer who got fired from his job and was kicked out of his house, and he'd burned so many bridges that he just had no where to go and nothing to protect him from the cold except this really nice pea-coat he'd gotten from the Gap.
I write all this because I saw today what was the apex of sadness. There was a homeless man walking with a few copies of the Big Issue in his hand, and only a few feet behind him, following him dutifully, was a German shephard in a torn-up little doggie sweater. I noticed almost immediately that the dog had only three legs, and that one of the sweater sleeves was entirely empty. How do you just walk by something like that?
Thursday, 25 January 2007
Create-A-Title!
I'm reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles right now, and it's a book about a peasant woman who's raped by a gentleman. Not a gentleman as we know it today, but a man with the title of gentleman. I'm pretty sure that rape is the most ungentlemanly activity possible. There's public flatulation, insulting someone's mother, and then rape. Those are the three things that gentlemen must never do.
A few other developments in candy-tasting. I've tried Crunchies. They're described as chocolate-covered honey-combs or some such thing, so I was expecting something kind of cruncy, chewey and chocolatey. Imagine my surprise when I bit into a rock-hard bar of what looked like chocolate-covered foam-rubber and tasted like a s'more where the marshmallow is burnt to a crisp. It was unpleasant. But not all British candy is bad. Cadbury eggs are available year-round here. I eat one almost every day, which has to be terrible for my health.
This weekend I think I'm going on a school-sponsored trip to some very nice castle and manor in the English countryside. Apparently, if you've seen a film with British gentry and fantastic country homes, some part of this manor was filmed in it. Whether or not I will find that impressive remains to be seen.
A few other developments in candy-tasting. I've tried Crunchies. They're described as chocolate-covered honey-combs or some such thing, so I was expecting something kind of cruncy, chewey and chocolatey. Imagine my surprise when I bit into a rock-hard bar of what looked like chocolate-covered foam-rubber and tasted like a s'more where the marshmallow is burnt to a crisp. It was unpleasant. But not all British candy is bad. Cadbury eggs are available year-round here. I eat one almost every day, which has to be terrible for my health.
This weekend I think I'm going on a school-sponsored trip to some very nice castle and manor in the English countryside. Apparently, if you've seen a film with British gentry and fantastic country homes, some part of this manor was filmed in it. Whether or not I will find that impressive remains to be seen.
Tuesday, 23 January 2007
Hi! I've started a blog
I've decided to start a blog. It'll be a journal of the feelings that I have, observations that I make, and experiences I've experienced. I feel this is particularly important since I'm in a foreign country, and my experiences will be new and different from anything I've previously experienced. I hope you're looking forward to the journey as much as I am. Or should I say experience.
Oxford is an extraordinarily old place, and I think if I were to choose anywhere in the world that's different in virtually every respect from my country, yet still speaks my language, it's here. Other than the fact that they all watch 24 and drink Coke, there's really not many similarities. I have sat in chairs that are older than my country. I have seen people walking down Broad street in flowing black robes on a windy day, looking for all the world like big, black flying squirells. I have been in buildings where the buttresses not only buttress, but fly, in addition to their buttressing. It's weird.
One interesting surprise has been the candy. I'm consistently surprised by it. The other day I tried a Twirl bar, which is a bar of flakey, dry chocolate, almost like little wittled chocolate shavings rolled up and smushed together. This all then covered with another layer of regular milk chocolate. The only real way of describing this is like a big, violent chocolate explosion inside your unsuspecting mouth. And I don't mean that in a positive, fun kind of way, like how an "ice-breaker" is a burst of cool freshness or something like that. Imagine the actual mechanics of chocolate exploding in your mouth. Imagine your jaw hanging by a single hinge. Imagine feeling some hot, gooey substance running down your neck, thinking its blood, only to discover its gobs and gobs of rich, hot, liquidy milk chocolate. Imagine it flowing into your sinuses and coming out your nose. Imagine crying chocolate. That's what eating a Twirl bar is like.
The classes here are structured in an odd way. At Skidmore (and, I think, at most American colleges), you have about four to six subjects that you take each term, meeting two to three times a week, for an hour to an hour and a half, in a discussion/lecture style period with twenty or so other students. Here you have two subjects, each meeting for an hour once a week, where you're expected to read anywhere from five (me) to ten (other Oxford students) books per subject. For each tutorial you're expected to write an essay anywhere from 2000 to 3000 words (about seven to ten pages double-spaced).
It's very work intensive, very self-motivating, and also very isolating. Without living with the other students, and kind of being dropped into things at the middle of the year, I'm having trouble getting to know British kids. I've started trying to integrate myself, though. I'm in a play called "Infernal Machine" by Jean Cocteau, which is a re-imagining of Oedipus Rex. I'm Oedipus. Yeah, crazy, right? This is gonna be my first lead in college, and it's gonna be in a foreign country where none of my friends or family can see it.
I think I might have been miscast, though. I got a direction the other day that disconcerted me. The director asked me if I'd ever seen the movie Gladiator. I told her yes. She said "Think of Oedipus like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Try and do it like that." Now when I look in the mirror I see many things, but none of them even remotely resemble Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Gawky teenager, perhaps. Sensitive intellectual. Indie-rock star, on my better days. But a muscle-bound Epic Hero I am not and, unless I hit the gym with extraordinary frequency, will never be. I'll do my best, but somehow I think this production isn't going to exactly work.
Oxford is an extraordinarily old place, and I think if I were to choose anywhere in the world that's different in virtually every respect from my country, yet still speaks my language, it's here. Other than the fact that they all watch 24 and drink Coke, there's really not many similarities. I have sat in chairs that are older than my country. I have seen people walking down Broad street in flowing black robes on a windy day, looking for all the world like big, black flying squirells. I have been in buildings where the buttresses not only buttress, but fly, in addition to their buttressing. It's weird.
One interesting surprise has been the candy. I'm consistently surprised by it. The other day I tried a Twirl bar, which is a bar of flakey, dry chocolate, almost like little wittled chocolate shavings rolled up and smushed together. This all then covered with another layer of regular milk chocolate. The only real way of describing this is like a big, violent chocolate explosion inside your unsuspecting mouth. And I don't mean that in a positive, fun kind of way, like how an "ice-breaker" is a burst of cool freshness or something like that. Imagine the actual mechanics of chocolate exploding in your mouth. Imagine your jaw hanging by a single hinge. Imagine feeling some hot, gooey substance running down your neck, thinking its blood, only to discover its gobs and gobs of rich, hot, liquidy milk chocolate. Imagine it flowing into your sinuses and coming out your nose. Imagine crying chocolate. That's what eating a Twirl bar is like.
The classes here are structured in an odd way. At Skidmore (and, I think, at most American colleges), you have about four to six subjects that you take each term, meeting two to three times a week, for an hour to an hour and a half, in a discussion/lecture style period with twenty or so other students. Here you have two subjects, each meeting for an hour once a week, where you're expected to read anywhere from five (me) to ten (other Oxford students) books per subject. For each tutorial you're expected to write an essay anywhere from 2000 to 3000 words (about seven to ten pages double-spaced).
It's very work intensive, very self-motivating, and also very isolating. Without living with the other students, and kind of being dropped into things at the middle of the year, I'm having trouble getting to know British kids. I've started trying to integrate myself, though. I'm in a play called "Infernal Machine" by Jean Cocteau, which is a re-imagining of Oedipus Rex. I'm Oedipus. Yeah, crazy, right? This is gonna be my first lead in college, and it's gonna be in a foreign country where none of my friends or family can see it.
I think I might have been miscast, though. I got a direction the other day that disconcerted me. The director asked me if I'd ever seen the movie Gladiator. I told her yes. She said "Think of Oedipus like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Try and do it like that." Now when I look in the mirror I see many things, but none of them even remotely resemble Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Gawky teenager, perhaps. Sensitive intellectual. Indie-rock star, on my better days. But a muscle-bound Epic Hero I am not and, unless I hit the gym with extraordinary frequency, will never be. I'll do my best, but somehow I think this production isn't going to exactly work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)