15 June - Kabuki and TKAMB

Against my better judgement I get collared into accepting to go with a Japanese colleague to see a Kabuki superstar visiting Sadler's Wells with one of their most popular shows about a Yoshitune character. This is partly because of my 'do everyting at least once' tenet. And despite seeing kabuki on TV I think and finding it excruciatingly boring, I don't remember seeing it live, so I have to go when asked. Plus I like Y. so that part won't be boring. She's older than me by a decade I think and still seems to be fitter than me in our gym classes.

Despite the running commentary on the useful gizmo and having read up on it, am suprised at the simplicity of what we're asking to watch (sort of a parable, you know the fox and the grapes) and though I understand these things were first performed 900 years ago, I think Chaucer was a bit more advanced and nobody in their right mind would go see Chaucer's anything performed now.

I know the japanese have an incredible patience for ceremony and seem to like it when things take forever to take place but... anyway, the play /tableaux gets more interesting during the second part though am still wishing I was watching Italy do very badly against the whatever team they had that night at 20.30. At the underground station we run into another Japanese colleague who had also attended and reveals she cried at the end (moral was about being grateful to your parents for having given you life so am sure resonates with many ungrateful grown ups). I think 'You cried at that??' Bonkers.

Cut to me following morning on the tube readint To Kill a Mockingbird, which for some reason I had missed out during those scool years when you read this book and had also missed out ever seeing the movie. Yessum. I got to page 169 of my edition when little Scout single handedly stops the lynching mob by reminding one of the would be attackers that he has a kid at home much as Atticus has Scout who is in fact at school with said kid. Exit lynch mob.

Clearly, written in 1960 , set in 1935 blah blah, skilled writer who knows which strings she's pulling but similar simple message, walk in someone else's shoes for a while, we're all the same underneath conventions etc etc.

Wonder if Japanese colleague could cry at this. Wonder if the fact that cultural exchanges at least in Europe seem to have the West conceptions as dominating, means that 'they' get our culture more than we can possibly get 'theirs'?
Discuss

2 February - Jerusalem & Gems

There he is, on a stage, being absolutely mega wonderful. Imagine like seeing Brando do Streecar on a stage (did he ever or only in movie?). The script, cast, direction help, but it's Mark Rylance's show. Am sat in 4th row for a change, Toph having decided that I'm not safe to buy theatre tix ever again, since I go for the cheap seats and after that time watching the top of Kenneth Branahgh's head in some Chekhov he sad no way.

So, I can see/hear everything super well. And am left to feel so sorry that the snow didn't snow harder a couple weeks back. Bascially S. was in London over from Vienna. She was due to return on such and such a sunday and said I hope the flight will leave, if not I'm going to this party at this actor's house, do you know him, Mark Rylance? Do I know Mark Rylance??? No, unfortunately I only know 'of' Mark Rylance, so I had to explain why he's so revered. She, living in Vienna is hardly au fait with London theatrealand. But more to the point, why she going to his house? Wouldn't you know, her London based brother used to date actor's stepdaughter and voila', three-degrees. I beg her to take me with and she says yes, will ask, but only of course if she's not flying off back to Austria. Which is exactly what happens and I never meet him and thus cannot go backstage after to prostrate on floor and declare I'm not worthy.


And talking of small world linked to S. How about this story. So, she's in London and as we're going nearby to visit J. who wants to show us his refurbished, de-gayfied house. I ask him if she can come along. He says yes. We walk in, she loves it/him. We admire the shelves, the state of the art sound system connected to every room and so on. In the living room she admires one large painting and says 'I know that room (in the painting), it's my upstairs neighbour in Venice, G.' And so it is, J. confirms was in Venice a few years ago, got to meet his painter, went to his studio and bought said painting of views on Giudecca. S. tell him she often has coffee in that room.

At some point I ask if J. has seen the ex B. the one who works in opera. He says she's coming to London soon and will meet up, things are friendly again sort of, after the final split. A few moments later S. says, 'Since you're talking opera, I wonder if you may know my good friend T. opera singer?' J. nearly spits his tea and so do we. This being the man J. sprinted B. from and very badly so. I'm horrified, I feel as if I've introduced a spy, an enemy into J's abode. I cry 'I didn't know you knew T'!' She says, yes you do, I was telling you about him only earlier.' 'Yes sure, you talked about a T. in Vienna, w/o the 'he's an opera singer' I'd have never made the connection. Turns out she has never met B. only heard of her and so the name means nothing to her. We sit there for a while in silence, wondering if there's any more coincidences to floor J. with. Then we leave. Oh dear... That was early January. Not heard from J. since.

October 23 - Complicite'

Ok, so if it wasn't enough to feel old reading through old magazines you've kept till now but now they have to go oh no you can't let them go oh yes you can if you can sell each copy for £20/30 odd and selling twenty will pay for your storage unit for a year... Feel extra guilty at asking friend for £20 for old copy of Blitz which she wanted 'cause look Lisa, my name is on the masthead back in '85, I was the ad sales manager', but hey, when they want £14 to go see new Bond movie in Leicesters square, you can see how I'm trying to make ends meet.
So, back to where this trail started, it didn't half make me feel old to go see latest Theatre de Complicite' play at the Barbican, The Disappearing Number or is that A Disappearing Number, when we realise that the company has been going 21 or is it 25 years and we've seen the first shows though I can't remember them. Anyway, the place was packed, the play was interesting though patchy according to Toph and now that I think about it, it had 2 central characters who were very weirdly together and had some awkward dialogue. However, I learnt lots of stuff which I like, for example I never knew anything about this genius mathematician or remembered stuff I must have known at some point for example how the number zero was really invented not that long ago, or that there is no space in sequences etc. But seeing formulas written on a board make me come out in shivers much as when I was back in school. Of course I can get there in the end but I need a lot longer as I simply cannot see 'it'. Then again I have no fear of a blank page as you can tell and am sure some people come out in hives about that. Each to their own.
But yeah, 25 years ago was another life.

10 October - Balconies 'r Us

What better to look forward to on a friday afternoon than an evening at a play we've never seen, with Kenneth Branagh in the lead and good reviews garnered? And all for the princely sum of £12 each. With drinks at the Groucho afterwards courtesy of lovely AP. Someone asked me earlier what the tix where for (on my desk) so I said Ivanov. He looked puzzled so I said an early Chekhov play that's not much performed. He didn't get the Chekov bit. This person earns 3 to 4 times as much as I do. Not sure what he likes but somedays you can't help but passing for some snooty cow.

4 May - Horses & Penis

We went to see Equus. Liked the setting, was totally unenthralled by the story/plot. For some reason had no interest in finding out why the boy blinded the horses, had sort of correctly assumed he was traumatised by something and underdeveloped in maturity and other areas so er... I just didn't get into it. And clearly the whole Harry Potter thing has left me untouched so there was no added bonus in him playing the part. Toph was having the 'That's Jenny Agutter' moment but I never saw that movie, The Railway Children, so never had a crush on her in the first place.
Dinner at Y. was much better. With... tbc

31 March - GD or DG

Am reminded by reading a post on friend’s blog that when she was out with Toph last week, Geoff Dyer walked into the club they were in, but though her agent knows him, there was no time for an introduction. The boy then told them of how he’s accidentally nearly met GD 3 other times. At a talk on photography at the ICA, whilst parking the car in Highgate and GD cycled past. Another time in north London and again GD on crossed the road in front of him. Then of course there’s an old professor of mine who’s bezzie mate with GD but has not yet arranged for us all to meet. Professor in fact knows David Gilmour very well and between the two, sorry to be sad, but I’d rather spend time with DG rather than GD. Though they're both pot heads or have been, and I don't usually get very far with the way their minds wander.

So, if anyone knows Geoff or if he’s reading this, (stranger things have happened in this small Lodon universe), we have some spare tickets for the Ibsen play at the Donmar on 11 April. Tell him to get in touch and he’ll be sat next to Toph who has no clue about this and it would definitely make him believe in chance and fate and all that, things that he’s rather too scientific about, whilst for me, well, it’s obvious I believe that’s how the world works. The boy is a fan of GD’s books so that helps, though he’s not been moved to compose any fan letters to him yet. That honour goes to Robert Fisk, whose lengthy tome on all the political crises in all the bars he’s ever frequented, Toph has taken to lugging about everywhere. I fear for his sanity when he finishes that book, though am sure it’s the kind of thing you can just start re-reading straight away. He'll be safe on the desert island.

2 March - Chekhov & Spring

How current is old Chekhov? Am sure you ask yourselves that question on a weekly basis. A lot. That’s why going to see The Seagull (and Uncle Vanya a few weeks ago) even though you read it years ago and saw the play years ago the therefore you don’t think you need to repeat the experience … is actually crucial. You just have to remind yourself that things make sense at different times in your life and what seemed irrelevant then, is now and s on. You take away from them what you need. Toph thinks the play is bleak, granted, and that Konstantin kills himself because he’s a failed writer. I think he kills himself because his mother doesn’t love him and the girl he’s fixated on doesn’t want him. But there you go. I do get the other stuff about these people being ciphers for the larger problems of Russia in those days and so on but… all of that doesn’t matter because at the end, after our furious clapping and self backslapping for bothering to get tickets, the boy says ‘You do look a bit like Kristin Scott Thomas, she’s more drawn than you but the mouth is very similar…’
I mean, a girl could fall off the balcony at such tribute. (La Scott Thomas was also terrific in the role of the vain actress mother, she totally inhabited it which I more that can be said for him from The Office) especially if she identifies with the vain in the above sentence. I was already thinking that it’s a shame it’s not cold enough to warrant me wearing gorgeous Russian style winter coats. Did I ever mention I love Anna Karenina? Didn’t think so.
If you consider that only a few days earlier leafing through supplements he’d leant over to show me the Creole looking girl in the M&S lingerie ads and said ‘She looks like you!’, it’s practically flattery heaven. Now, that one is a good 20 years younger than me, no? Kristin at least not dissimilar in age to me, bit more polished but I don’t benefit from Oscar make up on a daily basis or, come to think of it, ever. Clearly the two don’t look like each other and I don’t look like them, but these compliments are very, very welcome. Going into Spring feeling good! And it’s mutual. I’ve taken pictures of him where I’ve compared him to Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt who clearly don’t look like each other and/or like him blah blah but isn’t that the whole premise of that movie where Jack Black falls in love with Gwynnie and doesn’t see the fat girl? The look of love indeed.