Oh My Rendang Romeo!
It's two weeks til the end of term and the work pace is picking up. This week has sped on by so Wednesday night's night out at the Barbican was a welcome change to the daily slog. I had bought tickets about 5 weeks ago to go and see the Mokhwa Rerpertory Company's Romeo and Juliet and have been looking forward to it ever since. I'm not a huge fan of the story, nor Shakespeare, but remembering a play I had gone to see with my Culture-Vulture-for-a-brother when I was younger, I did that thing you do when you are looking for stuff to do/shop on-line and my mouse-finger took over and clicked the 'book tickets' button. The bus journey from my house to the Barbican involves two buses and a short walk through Angel, so as I had stepped out in my these-heels-are-too-pretty-but-hurt-like-a-b*tch I thought, oh sod this for a game of soldiers and tippy-toed my way to the minicab office at the top of the road. If you spend a week at home wearing your grotty slippers, glasses, previously-grey sweater you are going to put some heels on and a dress the first chance you get! So, arriving at the Barbican after coaxing the driver to take us thisclose to the door and about 15 minutes to spare before the curtain call, I snapped the sign quickly as K finished off his fag.
In front of the Barbican
Effective signage, no? So the venue for the play was in the pit, which if you recall this post- is perfect. Perfect! So gone was the pretentiousness often associated with Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet and injected with drums, in your face confrontation with the audience and absolutely perfect comic timing. The fact that the actors were Korean, or even East Asian looking, drew the play closer to home as I associated the Nurse character with Kaka, our maid when I was little (not that I ever saw myself as a little Juliet!) I told Sha about the play and naturally she asks whether it was acted in Korean. Of course, we said. Might have been a little more comic than intended if they did it otherwise. It was subtitled of course, via a long horizontal screen hung above the set, but as everyone knows the play anyway - its purpose was little more than to keep you astride with the speed of the acting and which act we might be in. Without it, I think I would have been lost!
I managed to go to the Royal College of Art open day this week as well which I won't elaborate about only that Nigel Coats is a rather dapper middle aged fellow. Having the rest of an essay draft to write that day I had to leave early after watching a couple crits. Still, on my way down (the architecture department is set on the top floor of an 8 storey building) I took a couple snaps of the skyline of London I don't normally see.
Skyline_1
Skyline_2
You forget sometimes that you live in London. Or perhaps that is just me, hermit-like in my ways for the past couple weeks. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Just the reading pile on the edge of my desk seems to grow without me noticing. It's quite a change from living in Singapore where you are confronted daily by the mega skyscrapers that dot the city. Even though we lived on the first floor of a block of flats, it was still a block of flats, and certainly felt like one. Going to work as well, you weave your way around the HDB estates around where your only landmarks to guide you are the top floors of the nearby 70 something storey bulidings. Here, living on the first floor of a little terraced house, the sky seems larger, the roofs seem lower and its quite easy to fall into the bubble that is home-uni-gym-home. Somehow it feels closer to being in Brunei than Singapore as soon as you forget the actual physical/climate difference. Or maybe it has something more to do with K in the kitchen who is, as I am typing this, making Rendang? YUM! xxw
In front of the Barbican
Effective signage, no? So the venue for the play was in the pit, which if you recall this post- is perfect. Perfect! So gone was the pretentiousness often associated with Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet and injected with drums, in your face confrontation with the audience and absolutely perfect comic timing. The fact that the actors were Korean, or even East Asian looking, drew the play closer to home as I associated the Nurse character with Kaka, our maid when I was little (not that I ever saw myself as a little Juliet!) I told Sha about the play and naturally she asks whether it was acted in Korean. Of course, we said. Might have been a little more comic than intended if they did it otherwise. It was subtitled of course, via a long horizontal screen hung above the set, but as everyone knows the play anyway - its purpose was little more than to keep you astride with the speed of the acting and which act we might be in. Without it, I think I would have been lost!
I managed to go to the Royal College of Art open day this week as well which I won't elaborate about only that Nigel Coats is a rather dapper middle aged fellow. Having the rest of an essay draft to write that day I had to leave early after watching a couple crits. Still, on my way down (the architecture department is set on the top floor of an 8 storey building) I took a couple snaps of the skyline of London I don't normally see.
Skyline_1
Skyline_2
You forget sometimes that you live in London. Or perhaps that is just me, hermit-like in my ways for the past couple weeks. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Just the reading pile on the edge of my desk seems to grow without me noticing. It's quite a change from living in Singapore where you are confronted daily by the mega skyscrapers that dot the city. Even though we lived on the first floor of a block of flats, it was still a block of flats, and certainly felt like one. Going to work as well, you weave your way around the HDB estates around where your only landmarks to guide you are the top floors of the nearby 70 something storey bulidings. Here, living on the first floor of a little terraced house, the sky seems larger, the roofs seem lower and its quite easy to fall into the bubble that is home-uni-gym-home. Somehow it feels closer to being in Brunei than Singapore as soon as you forget the actual physical/climate difference. Or maybe it has something more to do with K in the kitchen who is, as I am typing this, making Rendang? YUM! xxw
posted by Widarchitect at 5:58 pm
2 Comments:
Speaking of Romeo & Juliet, I remembered this performance I saw in 2000. It was held at the backyard of this house on this hill facing the Brunei river...So yea..Stuck in my mind because of the breathtaking location of the house..Anyway, I believe you were there too, playing the friar's assistant...? I recall a brown dress..
ahahahah and there I was thinking I was being clever and not making any reference to that. Me and my fabulous two lines.. And what two lines they were!Was perfect practice for the next role that came my way.
And yes what a beautiful setting that was. I have a feeling that the image in my head is far more romantic than the reality, perhaps I best leave it that way. xxw
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