A Rowing Life

So, I never truly posted about rowing, so here's a taster from last fall, written by one of my teammates, the fabulous Corinne Smith: back it down, stern pair.  She's an English MSt student, the only other postgrad on the team, and I think she excellently captures the gist of the rowing experience.  If I had written it though, the title would be, "row it on, bow pair."

Our team has changed a bit since last term, as we lost several girls when the weather turned dreary (not that it wasn't dreary already), and our two captains now row with us (since, having rowed Christ Church, we're no longer a novice crew).  But the experience remains basically unchanged, the only real difference being that we now punctuate our midnight study sessions with erg training -- need to work on that stamina.   

And for the record, we did lose.  And lose.  And lose.  Good thing that I'm not in it for the racing.  Just the early morning training sessions.  =)

Oxford ghosts

Let me just preface this by saying that I don't write poetry.  But apparently walking home from the Bodleian in the dark does weird things to my psyche.  I jotted this down sometime in November. 
_________________________

Are there hauntings in these buildings?—

ancient effigies of stone—

where empty rooms

forgotten stairways

nooks and crannies unexplored

or turned

with whitewashed paint

to modern studies

where boys and girls

read ancient worlds

in artificial lamplight,

the warmth of dying coffee

in ceramic mugs

mismatched,

and fight to enter in

to empire

as shadows are dispersed

by rising sunlight on the river, tamed

until tomorrow

Oxford, London, Stratford: Theatre in 2008

So, I do realize that this post is more than two years too late.  But better late than never, right?  So here is a look at the shows I saw the last time I was in Oxford, partially recovered from an unpublished post, and partially written looking back from the present.  I have to say, I may have only been here for a semester, but I saw some fantastic theatre. 

I went to England about a week early, to have some time to hang out with Kohleun before school started. We spent some time in Scotland (in a B&B on the coast -- so beautiful), a couple of days in Carlisle with one of my best friends and her family, and then our last day in London. We walked around in Leicester Sq., ate lunch in front of St. Paul's (and waited for my migraine to go away), took a double-decker bus past parliament and Big Ben, visited the Tate Modern, took pictures in front of Shakespeare's Globe, and ate in a pub. Then we did what everyone must do when they visit London: we went to a show!
 
Specifically, we went to see Chicago. It seemed like an appropriate choice for a girls' night out, and all our other picks were a bit out of our price range. Although the storyline isn't my favorite, it had great dancing (better and more often than the film -- with the exception of Billy's role [after all, how can you beat Richard Gere tap dancing?]), and the woman who played Zelma was great. We also enjoyed Roxie's: "Think big Roxie! I'll have lots of boys!" (maybe it was one of those moments that you had to be there for . . . ).

Then, when Mommy came to visit, we went to see Wicked. I'd seen it once before, with a good friend in the States, but I really wanted to share it with her. It's a great show. Everything a musical should be. =)

Then, my amazingly talented older brother secured us seats to the sold-out production of Ivanov, with Kenneth Branagh! It was amazing. Definitely one of my life dreams fulfilled. I've wanted to see Branagh live since I first saw Much Ado About Nothing when I was nine.

That weekend, Jordan, Marisa, and I went to see Blood Brothers. Jordan and I had seen it before, in London during his senior year of high school, but it's one of our favorite shows, so we were really excited about seeing it again, and sharing it with Marisa. It's an incredible combination of music, story, and acting, and is known for reaping standing ovations -- every single night.

 
That next weekend my dad was in town, and we took a chance on a show neither of us had ever seen (or really heard about): The Lady in Black.  Turned out to be one of the most incredible pieces of acting (and remarkable shows) I've ever seen.  The crazy thing about the play is that it's meant to be scary . . . and it is.  I'm pretty sure I even remember people screaming.  Yet there are only two actors and a few boxes on stage.  Everything else (other than a few well-placed light and sound ques) is pretty much in your head.  An incredible exploration of the limits (or non-limits) of the medium.  Yes, you're constantly pulled back to the realization that you're sitting in a theatre seat, watching an empty stage with a room full of other people, but the remarkable thing is that there are moments in which you forget.

I saw The Last Five Years (which I've written about elsewhere) in Oxford with some friends, and Zorro by myself in London to celebrate my first completed tutorial.

And then there was Stratford.

 
During the first few weeks of our program, a visiting lecturer talked to us about Shakespeare.  An expert in her field, who had talked and laughed with the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, she informed us that Shakespearean history was being made at that very moment: the Hamlet of our generation was being performed in Stratford-upon-Avon.  She said it was the performance future students of Shakespeare (actors and academics alike) would study, and that whether we had to beg, borrow, or steal, we had to get ourselves there.
 

Easier said than done.  
 
Needless to say, it had been sold out for months, and without my brother's awesome eBay skills we were stranded . . . almost.  Luckily for us, the RSC believes in student tickets, and they reserve ten, priced at five pounds each, that can only be bought on the day of the show.  So we did what any committed fans would do, we jumped on a bus down to Stratford, pretended to be hobos in the RSC courtyard, spent the night shivering in the rain, and secured our tickets bright and early the next morning.

It was incredible.  The show, and the experience.  There was a matinee of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the same day, so we went to that too (also for five pounds).  Never my favorite Shakespeare, it was nonetheless excellently executed, and since the RSC is an ensemble, it was fascinating to see the actors perform such different roles.

Hamlet itself was nothing to look at.  No spectacle (other than a cracking mirror), on a nearly empty stage.  Which simply highlighted the fact that the acting was phenomenal.  I have never been to a show (especially a Shakespeare) where there was so little confusion over language.  Every line was pristinely clear, and not because I'm overly familiar with Hamlet (I'm not), but because the actors connected every line so irrevocably to intention and thought.

And who were these actors?  Only the incredible Patrick Stuart and incomparable David Tennant (who, I have to admit, I had never heard of before the play, but I quickly learned to laud his wonders, and will be seeing him in Much Ado About Nothing this summer with the fantastic Sara Kelm).

All-in-all, nine shows in fourteen weeks -- not bad for a semester in which I also wrote over 34,000 words and read who knows how many pages of Greek tragedies, modernist novels, and secondary criticism.  It makes my current achievements look rather half-hearted.

Sweeney Todd [or the mystery of theatre]

Theatre is a strange, mystical, and unquantitative experience.

No matter how confidant I feel in my knowledge of the difference between good theatre and bad, there is always an elusive element -- something that avoids description and categorization.  That aloof presence that my high school drama class so hautighly rejected in their disdain for viewpoints -- a tangible energy that radiates from the actors to the audience and back, forming undeniable connections.

Case in point: I went to see Sweeney Todd at Pembroke College on Wednesday night, and by the end of the first fifteen minutes I was so disheartened that I contemplated walking out.  And I never walk out -- not from theatre, and not from something I've paid for.

What you have to understand about Oxford theatre is that -- while I'm constantly surprised by its level of excellence -- it is a product of hasty craftsmanship.  This is not George Fox, where I spent my undergrad, and where theatre is taken seriously as a holistic experience -- where props, costumes, and stage (not to mention sound and lights) are all utilized as aspects of storytelling.  As intrinsically connected to the development of meaning and theme.

Oxford theatre, thrown together in a matter of weeks, with no supervising faculty, no costume shop, no prop teams, and no stage to be carefully converted, doesn't have the time or the means to take the visual aspect of theatre seriously.  And so it relies, heavily, on the acting.  On the ability of the performers to transcend the tacky props and problematic costumes and transport the audience into a world of the imagination.  And, perhaps surprisingly, they succeed much more than they fail (I wonder sometimes if it this heavy reliance on the quality of acting that has led Oxford and Cambridge to produce some of Britain's greatest performers).

The problem with Sweeney Todd, performed in the college's dining hall, on a cluttered makeshift stage, was that neither the acting, nor the singing, were compelling (though I have to admit that the lighting was surprisingly excellent).  And without that entry into the world of the musical, we were just a bunch of random people sitting on uncomfortable chairs in a glorified dining room listening to bad music.  And I decided that I had neither the time, nor the energy, to make that worthwhile.

But no matter how much you aren't enjoying a show, you can't just get up and walk out in the midst of performance.  I have far too much respect for the hard work of actors and director to even contemplate it.  So I waited for intermission to make my escape palatable.

And that was when that strange, mystical aspect of theatre kicked in.  

 
Did the acting improve?  Probably.  The actors warmed up to each other and to us, and allowed themselves to actually inhabit the characters (and relationships) they were creating.  Did the singing improve?  Possibly.  Though certainly not on the part of Anthony and Johanna (the young sailor [i.e. stalker] and his love).  But whatever it was that happened between those first fifteen minutes, the intermission (when I didn't walk out), and the curtain call -- which left me energized, mesmerized, and (somewhat) shaken -- was the core of what makes theatre so mysteriously and indefinably wonderful.  And so very difficult to describe.

Spring ruminations from a Bodleian window

There really are not words to describe the glory of an Oxford sky
when the sun shines, and the blue is soft as summer dreams,
and the towers of All Souls gleam with half-articulated longing,
and the whole world trembles with possibility
and youthful, age-worn, promise.

surprises

One doesn't expect one's giants to be human.

Toril Moi --
bulwark of feminist academia -- is
in person
a school-girl
with crimpy blond hair
and a red handbag.

Bodleian hauntings

There is a woman who haunts the Bodleian.  I see her nearly every day that I make my way to the lower reading rooms to sift through dust-covered tomes on mythology and theory (which, if I'm honest, hasn't been for a while, since I currently spend my time in the upper reading rooms exploring Old Norse sagas and related criticism).  But when I say haunts, I do mean haunts -- I could easily believe that it is only I who sees her.  She walks -- or maybe glides -- from one side of the building to the other, her eyes invariably on the book she is reading while she roams (and who but a ghost could walk and read, never lift her eyes from the page, yet never stumble, bump, or trip?), her hair in the same loose bun, day after day, that could easily have made its way from the pages of the 1800s, and her waist-cinched, ankle-length black dress billowing around her.  If she is a ghost -- a female scholar debarred from the library during her time on earth -- I suppose there are worse ways to spend eternity than perusing the eleven million volumes in the Bodleian's collection.

Spring Awakening

One of the amazing things about Oxford is the theatre.  With 38 colleges, six private halls, and two professional theatres in the city, there is never a week (or day) without more theatre happening than I (or anyone else) can possibly fit into their schedules.  One of my biggest regrets about last term was that I let this amazing opportunity pass me by, and only went to a grand total of one play.  And that one wasn't even that great.  I've been trying to rectify this failure by making a conscientious effort to see theatre this term, aiming for one show a week.  While I haven't completely succeeded, I have quadrupled my show-numbers from last term, and it's only the end of sixth week.

Today I went to Spring Awakening, and while not my favorite of the shows I've seen this term, it was definitely interesting.  A musical set in 19th-century Germany, it was advertised as a kind of period Rent -- a coming-of-age story about sex and death and loss of innocence.  As the show was played, however, it was considerably more innocent than Rent, and I think that innocence would have clung on even with traditional staging (which involves considerable nudity).

The thing about Rent is that it's a play about despair and hope -- the search for meaning among individuals who have lost faith in society, and long for something, anything, that can give significance back to life.

Spring Awakening, on the other hand, is a story about "purple summers" -- the innocence of childhood, and the (unthinking, unintentional?) cruelty/stupidity of those (in this case adults/parents) who have the power to crush their dreams.  Yes there is sex, and maybe even rebellion, but it is still, in many ways, very innocent -- the uncertain attempts of young adults to find their way forward into a world that no one has been willing to explain.  When the main girl gets pregnant, she honestly doesn't know what she's done.  Despite her persistent questioning at the beginning of the play, her mother refuses to tell her the "facts of life," leaving Wendla in a place, by the end, where all she can do is demand, "Why didn't you tell me the whole truth?"

But an unplanned, unexpected pregnancy is not the tragedy of the play.  It's the way that optimistic hope is crushed, consistently, irrevocably, by "the real world" of the adult community -- a community that can't bend it's rules, whether those involve only allowing 60 students to advance (no matter how hard the 61st has worked to pass) or the moral imperative that declares a young girl evil and sinful if she is carrying life outside of marriage, regardless of the circumstances.  It is these rules that refuse to allow Wendla and Melchior to have a future, even though they want one, and that leaves the children wounded and hurting by the play's end -- not looking forward to the uncontained potential of the future, as they should be, but aching from the past and dreading a world that seems to offer nothing but bitterness and closed doors.     

However, despite the interesting themes and incredible acting on the part of Melchior (a good friend of one of my lovely college-mates, who also wrote a critique of the show, which can be looked at over here), the play itself was flawed.  Not quite what a musical should be.  To be honest, it reminded me too much of Glee, where songs are sung because they're pretty (or perhaps reference a relevant theme) rather than as an effortless continuation of the narrative or outflowing of a character's emotional state (or soul).  The music was nice-sounding, but out-of-place for a small town in the 1800s (as was the set and costume design), and therefore jarring.  But even if this discontinuity is ignored, the music was still hard to follow, and definitely didn't tell a story -- not in the same way that the dialogue did.

What annoyed me most, though, was the way in which thematic elements were thrown in even though they had no grounding in the actual narrative.  The parts of the play that worked were the stories: the times when we saw concrete pain and abuse in the lives of characters we knew and cared about.  When that theme of abuse (which was clearly what the writer was going for, and hitting us over the heads with) was simply thrown in for the heck of it, without relevance to actual characters (and sometimes actually contradicting information we knew about them) it just became too much.  You don't add a song about sexual abuse for the heck of it.  It has to matter.  And it didn't.  Not to the story, and not to our understanding of the characters (who were actually, for all I could tell, dealing with the issue of physical abuse, not molestation). 

But perhaps part of it was the way the play was performed.  The very innocence of it.  Because there are definitely hints of a darker interpretation.  Not simply kids being abused by "the system," but the ambiguity of a violence that is contained both within the imposed innocence and within the imposed awakening.  In response to learning that her friend is beaten, Wendla demands that Melchior hit her, so she can know what it feels like.  And he does; and he goes too far.  Later, when they are in the hay-loft, it is far from clear whether Wendla actually wants to have sex.  Although her consistent refusals were downplayed in this performance, leaving the audience to feel that she is unsure, but ultimately convinced, and every-bit the willing partner, there is definitely room for a different interpretation.

Is it possible that the ashes we are left with at the play's end (or the dead leaves, if you will) are as much Melchior's fault as they are the fault of the authority figures who tried to impose an oppressive control?  If so, what has Melchior learned, how has he changed, and what does his promise to remember his friends' dreams really mean?  In this production he doesn't have to change -- not really.  His eyes are opened to horror, and he is certainly less sure and less optimistic, but he can still be single-minded in his righteousness.  He was right, and the world was wrong.  But what if he is as guilty as the lies he hates?  What then?   

Our Melchior didn't face any such questions, and as such, the play itself felt a bit abusive -- like it had violently imposed a viewpoint of the world that I'm not sure I'm wholly willing to accept. 

On a side-note: what's up with creating lighting so dark you can barely see characters' faces for all the shadows?  And a side-side-note: the original Broadway cast included Rachel and Jesse from Glee. 

Last Things: C.S. Lewis on Hell and Heaven (and the giants I wish I knew)

There are men I wish I could meet.  Men who come across, in the pages of the books wherein I've glimpsed them, as wise, and compassionate, and humble -- with twinkles lodged deep in their eyes.  Sometimes I wonder if I was just born too late, here "at the end of all things" -- the world has grown old with television and cell phones and internet, and the Chestertons, Lewises, and MacDonalds have moved on to better realms.*

But tonight I met Bishop Kallistos Ware, and listening to the tenure of his voice in the gilded upper room used by the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society, I was reminded that maybe not all of the giants have passed.

He spoke with handwritten notes he barely used, each phrase richly textured with scores of books read and thoughts ruminated.  He made us laugh.  He made us think.  He gave us hope.

He talked of listening to Lewis debate at the Socratic Society during his [Kallistos's] years as an undergraduate.  Described him as a great thinker, and a great arguer, fast on his toes with his thoughts.

The topic was heaven and hell -- much of it grappling with ideas I wrote my "C.S. Lewis and the Bible" paper on in college.  That we are saved by God's grace, grace that gives us the ability to choose, even if our choice is a hell locked from the inside -- a hell filled still with the love of God, and obstinate rejection of that love.

We talked about animals, and how, while not immortal in themselves, our interaction with them -- knowing them, loving them -- may make them, in Lewis's mind anyway, eternal beings.  As Kallistos said, "We cannot know, but we can hope."

It was a phrase he repeated a lot.  A phrase he used when he said that believing that all must be saved is contrary to the freedom of a loving God, but still we can hope, while we cannot know, that all will be saved.

And, in phrases that resonated with Lewis and Tolkien's visions of fairy-stories and fantasy, when asked about learning from other religions, he answered that journeys are about coming home with new eyes.  In the same way, religious dialog is valuable (and beautiful) in that it helps us see new truth within our own tradition -- and exposes us to new ways of approaching the Divine through prayer.  

And apparently heaven (Lewis would be happy to know) will be like the Oxford University Walking Club -- or Felix the Cat who kept walking on ("further up, and further in").

And now it is midnight, and crew training, last minute reading, and Old Norse tutorials await me in the morning.  So to bed I must go.  

*I will admit that this passion for dead white men is problematic on many levels.  But God gives grace even to them, and their words and worlds resonate deep within my soul, calling me home to lost visions.

Early mornings with Percy Shelley

I am in the process of creating a new lifestyle for myself.  One in which I actually wake up in the morning.  (Shocking, I know).  Eat breakfast (with many, many cups of coffee), and then spend all of my daylight hours in the library.

I've done well so far.  With the exception of Saturday and Sunday (where my routine was broken with a migraine and church), I've done a complete week without falling off the wagon.  Written about half of a (rough) rough draft of my theory essay, and read about 800 pages of Icelandic myth and history.

The real test will be how well I survive the revival of crew training tomorrow.

But anyway.  That was actually just a prelude to say that I was in the Bodleian today, reading The Poetic Edda (translated by the professor I'll be working with this term), when one of the women from my Thursday night Bible study asked if I wanted to take a lunch break with her.  So we went to a local deli and bought baguette sandwiches (Brie and onion marmalade) and then ate them in her college's MCR (which, for those of you uninitiated, is the "Middle Common Room" -- i.e. the place where grad students hang out).

She's a member of University College, and gave me a bit of a tour, which included this lovely memorial to (arguably) the college's most famous member: Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In case you didn't know, besides being married to the author of Frankenstein, Shelley is one of the most famous of the Romantic poets, usually remembered beside such names as Byron and Keats.

What I found exceedingly amusing, however, is that this memorial (given to the college because it was too large to transport, as originally intended, to his grave in Rome) commemorates a student who lasted a grand total of one term at Oxford.  That's right.  On the 25th of March it will be exactly 200 years since Shelley was expelled.

Which explains, I suppose, why, when originally offered the memorial, the Fellows of the college decided to reject it.  But granted foresight (and extra money from his daughter-in-law) they finally accepted what has become the college's leading tourist attraction.

It, appropriately enough, is described as the statue that "continues to fascinate and disturb."  I think that Shelley, the author of "infidel poetry" (so described by the journalist who gloated, upon hearing of his death, that "now he knows whether there is God or no") and the "inspiration to rebellious students everywhere" (so claimed by one of Oxford's current student newspapers), would appreciate the description.