Free Post Thursday – Back, From a Dream!

I am back from lovely Northumberland – it was too short a break really, but we squeezed it in between various things and were lucky to get any time away, to be honest.

I said I’d tell you about my theatre trip when I got back so here goes…

The Royal Shakespeare Company have been touring the UK with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and we got tickets for 23 April, which was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.   The performance has used local theatre groups to fill certain roles around the country, and the performance we went to see was no different.

Except that it was: for the first time ever recorded, a woman played the part of Bottom.  Not only was this historically significant but the part was brilliantly performed by an amateur, not a member of the RSC cast.

The local performers were great – I wasn’t sure when I heard about it how well it would work but for our performance they were brilliant, and had the audience in stitches.  Interesting phrase that, by the way: current usage is relatively modern but an earlier version was used by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, so it seems appropriate!

The staging was completely different from any other version of Midsummer I’ve seen – no trees, forests, flowers but what looked like a bombed out building.  Reading the programme I understood why but it did give the performance a different feel from normal.

So there you have it, in a nutshell.

I find myself reflecting on elements of a performance long after the play has finished.  There is generally one scene or image that floats in my mind and settles into the memory bank more strongly than others.  Sometimes it is obvious why – Idina Menzel rising over the stage singing ‘Defying Gravity‘ was a pretty theatrical image! – but sometimes it is a simple gesture that tugs at my emotions in a powerful way.  The intimate nature of those moments only works in a theatre for me: even when we’ve been in the cheap seats I have felt connected to the scene before me.

One of my earliest live performance memories was seeing the ballet Swan Lake performed.  It was at a beautiful moated castle and although I was probably only about five I can still close my eyes and see (or imagine I see) the shadows of those dancers pirouetting across the stone walls.  It was magical and dreamlike, and it’s the feeling I am searching for every time I see a play, ballet or show.  I think it’s why certain images stay with me too – they reflect that first memory.

We are all inspired by, or brought joy by, different things – be it music, dance, football, golf, films, gardens.  What is the same is that it makes our lives richer.  We can be transported to another place and we can be genuinely removed from the trials and tribulations of day to day life.  We can be inspired to try things ourselves: I am sure my am dram life is related to my love of the theatre.  We can expand our horizons.

All that from a couple of hours is a pretty good return on investment, don’t you think?

Happy writing,

EJ

🙂

 

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Week 122.5 – Behold the Ballet

I said on Sunday that I was away; well, the reason for that was a trip to the ballet to watch The Nutcracker.

The last time I watched a professional ballet (as far as I remember) I was really very young – maybe four or five, something like that. I know it was at night and I got tired and fell asleep but there are a couple of elements I remember. It was an outside performance, at a castle with a moat. We were a long way back, but the dancers were well lit.

I think it was Swan Lake – all I remember of the costumes was white tutus.

I say I remember these things – it’s entirely possible that it’s all just an impression I took away and nothing to do with the reality of the evening at all!  But from an inspiration point of view, it doesn’t really matter. The ballet was a magical thing, and I remember the movements of the dancers as though they were silk threads weaving in the breeze.

As an adult, there is more to inspire me. The dancers are fluid, and yet incredibly strong with sharply defined muscles. The female dancers are almost ethereally delicate, yet when they wear their special shoes to dance en pointe, their landings are loud and sound almost wooden.  The costumes are light but weighted with crystals. The make up is heavy, and yet subtle (from where we were sitting anyway!).

It was still magical, but now I am aware how much work went into making it so.  The artistry is not just in the performance of the dancers but in the whole team – from musicians to hair and makeup to costume to set decorators.  As in any creative endeavour, the whole is more than the sum of its parts – but without any one of those parts it wouldn’t be complete.

That’s knowledge that I can use as a writer, and appreciate as an audience member.

Until next time,

Happy writing

EJ

🙂

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