Postponing the Stolen Spring

Spring is finally arriving to Denmark - and this year, with it comes IB exams and university-decisions. I'm still waiting for an answer from one of the universities I applied to in the UK, and it's driving me crazy.. You could probably say I'm the kind of person who likes to be in control, and not knowing even which country I'll be living in half a year from now is a bit unnerving!!

I've been missing doing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" terribly (pic left) - the costumes, the directing, the horrible busy-ness was way more fun than preparing for exams! 

This week, I got a bit back into my theatre-state-of-mind, though; thursday, I went to Krudttønden with a friend to watch David Mamet's "Oleanna" (pic right), and saturday my family and I went to the Royal Danish Theatre to watch their production of "My Fair Lady". The play thursday was really, really good, and very intense; a two-character play, with a total of only three scenes, concerning a student who completely destroys a professor by accusing him of amongst other things sexual harrassment and elitism. We spent a lot of time discussing the play afterwards, and it was interesting how differently one might view the play depending on cultural standpoint. Accusing him of those things based on the actions we saw him perform would be ridiculous in a Danish context - but probably less so in for example the US, where the play was written.

My Fair Lady was also a really good production. Especially the sets and costumes were amazing, and the actors were also good. I did get a bit annoyed with the translation to Danish at some points - but a translated version is practically impossible to make as good as the original, I guess, because the language will always be a bit clumsy. Not surprisingly, Cockney-english can't really be translated because the dialect-variations in Danish are smaller than in English, but Eliza (Cecilie Steenspil) instead spoke a kind of 'ghetto'-Danish with a lot of misinterpreted 'sayings' such as "Jeg er ikke den der slipper en halv vind" and "Man kan ikke både blæse og have rent mel i posen" which were brilliant. 

I especially adored the costumes and set of the Ascot scene; all females had elaborate headpieces relating to 'tea', such as teacups, saucers, trays with tea sets etc. It must be difficult to reinterpret costumes to a so iconic scene, but in my opinion they fell nothing short of the Audrey Hepburn movie-version.
          One costume which didn't quite live up to the standards set by the rest were Eliza's ballgown - it was not a very flattering design for the actress, made her look all boxy, and all the flowy pieces of fabric made it look like a bundle of chiffon-rags - nothing like the simplistic Givenchy gown it's in my mind supposed to be.
          Still, it was a visually beautiful production, which did a pretty good job of overcoming the language problems. The actors were good; it was much less emotionally intense that Oleanna, but that has more to do with the script than anything else. The two plays were very different, also in size; Krudttønden is such a tiny, intimate stage, that in comparison the Royal Theatre's Gamle Scene is huge - that also makes for quite a different experience. I'm very happy I watched both plays - and I definitely have to keep up the habit of watching a lot of plays!

Aside from watching theatre, I also twice this week practiced my directing skills - I helped a friend who was also in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" prepare for an audition at a drama school. Coincidentally, she had found a monologue from Oleanna, which we then rehearsed for her modern part; it was an excerpt from the first act, where Carol (the student) protests when the professor questions the purpose of higher education. It went really well, and I personally think she turned out to be much better than any of the versions we could find on youtube ^^

          For the classical pieces we rehearsed Ophelia's "O what a noble mind is here overthrown"-monologue from Hamlet, as well as Puck's "Though the forest have I gone..." from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I have missed doing Shakespeare! We've had some good times watching the 2010 David Tennant version of Hamlet, which is by the way brilliant, and laughing at the ridiculous acting of Kenneth Branagh in his 1996 version. I found it difficult to give directions on Ophelia - it is difficult to make it anything but static, and the emotions have to come by themselves in order to seem real. Puck was a bit easier, and we managed to redo the scene so we didn't just copy Puck from our school play (which was played by a different actor) - ending up with a good result. Her audition was today, and I can't wait to hear about how it went. I've been crossing fingers and toes and whatnot all day, so now we'll just have to wait for the results --

Good luck to her, and good luck to me with universities!