“Oh sister, sister. If ever you marry beware of a sullen, silent, sot. One who’s always musing but never thinks!”
Thus began one of my monologues in our Restoration project. I spent every day of last week wearing a corset tied tightly around my torso, character shoes that are at least 6 years old, and a rehearsal skirt that spins when I twirl. We rehearsed with Tina and George (our voice coach for our project) all day, making sure we had a really great show to perform come Thursday. Our hard work paid off and we put on what I think was an impressive display of various Restoration scenes, a Restoration song, and a Restoration dance (courtesy of Diana, in which I played a drunken man named Sir Harry, one of my finer roles if I do say so myself).
Our group performed first on Thursday morning and we got to watch the two other groups perform after we were finished. I was pleasantly surprised by everyone. It was clear each of us put in a lot of work and have been benefitting from the training we are receiving. It was great fun to finally see what we’ve all been working on for the past few weeks. Here is a (slightly out of focus) picture of my whole cast with Tina and George in the center.
Friday morning, we came to LAMDA for tutorials. Tutorials are essentially one on one conversations with tutors or directors in which they give feedback and critiques. I met with Tina for about 15 minutes and she gave me a lot of interesting things to think about as I continue but she was also quite complimentary, which was kind and very nice to hear.
I’ve forgotten to mention that Caitlin was in town this week! Yay GW spring break! I met up with Caitlin to grab some coffee early in the week, saw her and Amy after rehearsals one day, and also saw her on Friday. It’s always so funny to see someone you’re very used to seeing in one context, one city in a totally different city and context. It was wonderful to see Caitlin and catch up! I got to hear all about her life and the GW gossip and tell her all about LAMDA and my adventures. I can’t think of a better way to break up a long week of rehearsals.
Friday evening, I headed to Victoria Coach Station. Why, you ask? Well… a group of us were traveling to Scotland. At approximately 10:30pm, Michael, Sarah, Teresa, Christian, Caleb, Jae, Hannah, Lindsay, and I boarded a bus bound for Edinburgh. After a hellish 8 and a half hours on the bus, we arrived in Edinburgh around 6:45am. We took the Night Bus, one might say! Our Pollyanna-style optimism led us to believe we were going to get a good night’s sleep on the bus and be refreshed, ready-to-go when we arrived. Umm… not quite. Between the man in front of me deciding he needed to recline his seat ALL THE WAY BACK (I have never wanted to physically harm a human being more than when he kept slamming his chair into my knees…) and the general discomfort of sitting on a bus for 8 hours, we did not arrive quite as bright eyed and bushy tailed as we had hoped.
Thankfully, the hostel allowed us to check in and take a nap in one of their many lounges. The hostel… Castle Rock Hostel. I highly recommend this place to anyone and everyone. Across the street from Edinburgh Castle (no, I’m not exaggerating), it is clean, massive, and has some of the friendliest staff I’ve ever come across. We happily accepted their offer of nap taking and Teresa and I settled into a couch in the Posh Lounge. After sleeping for a bit (and honestly doing some semi-supine in an attempt to realign my spine), we woke up with ravenous appetites for food and exploration. Food we satisfied by going to an amazing place around the corner called Hula. The waitress was around our age and extremely nice. I had a hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows (YUM) and a bagel sandwich which had brie, cranberry sauce, tomatoes, and bacon (YUMMMM). Everyone enjoyed their meals thoroughly and then we set off to go on the free Edinburgh walking tour. Free? Did you read that right? Yes you did! But the 11am tour was full so pause on that for a moment…
Since the 11 o’clock tour was full, we decided to wander down the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Armed with our free audio tours and maps of the palace, we began to explore. What a remarkable place… It is still a functioning palace: the Queen’s official residence when she is in Scotland. But it also has a storied past as it was the home to Mary Queen of Scots and various other Scottish monarchs. We explored for a while and then emerged into the ruins of the old abbey.
Exploring the ruins alone was worth the price of admission. Well, really the whole experience was absolutely worth it. I was largely unaware of the dramatic period of history that took place within the walls of this old palace. It was also interesting to see rooms where the carpets were simply rolled up to the line of the velvet ropes, clearly ready to be unrolled whenever the palace functioned as a home and a place for state functions to occur. Dad said this was a sight not to be missed and he was certainly right. Here is our whole group outside the palace.
From the palace, we headed back up the Royal Mile to go on the 2 o’clock tour. Sitting in Starbucks for a brief moment to rest our feet and caffeinate ourselves, we soon headed outside into the brisk and chilling wind. Ben was our friendly tour guide and we soon set off on our tour. In our 2 1/2 hours, we walked to the City Chambers. We stopped at the Mercat Cross (where the town crier would deliver news and where thieves would be nailed to the door by their ear for a period of 24 hours). Next we stood outside St. Giles’ Cathedral, hearing about Scotland’s religious history which is a little muddy due to England’s bipolar relationship with religion and Scotland and England’s bipolar relationship. We wandered by the Writers’ Museum and discussed the fact that Edinburgh has been, and still is, a major hub for important writers through the ages. Something about the town truly inspires literary genius. Ben pointed out the “original Hogwarts,” an old school building that still functions today. From The Elephant Bar, JK Rowling would have been able to see this school and Edinburgh Castle. It’s not hard to imagine her combining the two to create the magical world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You can see the old school building in the background of this picture.
In the foreground is part of Grassmarket. Today, the area is filled with pubs and shops but throughout history it was the site of witch burnings. We walked by the oldest building in Edinburgh, dating back to medieval times. It is closed in the winter because there is no heating but the outside alone was quite picturesque. Continuing our wander through the city, we soon came to Greyfriars Cemetery. Most famous for the story of Greyfriars Bobby (a dog that slept on his deceased master’s grave for 14 years), this cemetery is also famous for a couple other reasons. For one, JK Rowling took some of her character names from headstones in the graveyard. You can go there and see Tom Riddle’s grave, McGonagall’s grave, and a few others. Also here is the Covenanters’ Prison. The covenanters were members of the Scottish Presbyterian movement when England tried to convert the whole country to Catholicism. The outspoken Presbyterian supporters were imprisoned here, in the open air, with hardly any food, and were tortured. Now, this area is gated and only opened at night as part of a ghost tour. Even being there in the day was eery… I cannot imagine walking through there at night.
On a lighter note, we finished the tour by rubbing the nose of the statue of Greyfriars Bobby for luck and passing by The Elephant House, where JK Rowling wrote books one and two of Harry Potter. After our tour, we were quite tired and cold so we returned to our hostel to get settled in our rooms. We showered and got ready to go out on the town for dinner, where we all tried at least one bite of haggis (not nearly as bad as I expected). It was Lindsay’s birthday so ate, danced, and were merry.
The next morning, my alarm went off at 4am. We had decided to do a sunrise hike up Arthur’s Seat. Groggily, we got dressed as warmly as we could and set off. The hike took us up what we began to affectionately call The Demon Stairs, as well as just some generally steep terrain. Eventually, we made it to the top and sat down to wait for the sun to appear. It was absolutely frigid and the wind was blowing nearly hard enough to literally blow you over. It was beautiful, though. The lights of the city, the sea in the distance, and (soon enough) the sky began to glow.
Finally, the sun was mostly up. Its rays did not provide much warmth, though, and we were chilled to the bone. We decided to head back down. Walking back down, we marveled at how we possibly did the hike in the dark. Impressed, but cold, we returned to the hostel to get warm and sleep until the rest of the world had woken up. After sleeping until a more appropriate hour to begin the day, we set out for breakfast at our trusty Hula. Then, we went to Edinburgh Castle which we explored thoroughly. It was picturesque but I think I’m a little castled-out. I was much more impressed with Holyroodhouse. Don’t get me wrong, it was lovely and I’m very glad we saw it. But it was just a typical castle and has been turned into too much of a tourist attraction for my taste.
Once we had finished at the castle, we splintered off into smaller groups to do our own thing before we had to head to the airport. Sarah, Christian, Lindsay, and I decided to go check out the quaint shops on Grassmarket and along the Royal Mile. There were lots of cute knick-knacks but I refrained from buying too many things. I did find a beautiful dress in one of the shops and I think I shall wear it to Emily’s graduation. (Emily’s graduating… I feel like an old lady…) Sarah bought an adorable sweater with a mallard on it.
We all met back up around 4:30pm for a late lunch/early dinner of fish and chips and Scottish beer. We then collected our things from the hostel and boarded the bus to take us to the airport. Then we boarded our flight which passed without incident until I got yelled at by an old, crazy woman because I turned my phone on when we landed. Apparently in the UK it is still against the rules to use your phone until you get to the gate and are parked and disembarking. Being a stupid American, I assumed the rules in the US are the rules everywhere and turned on my phone. This woman was genuinely afraid for her life and kept yelling at me to turn my phone off. At the time I was really upset by this but now I think it’s kind of funny. She legitimately thought I had a death wish and planned to carry it out by turning on my phone too soon. Ah… ignorant people…
The weekend passed in the blink of an eye. I’m so glad I got the chance to go back to Edinburgh, and with such a fantastic group of people. It was a weekend of exploring, adventures, and laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face. Thank god for new friends and fun adventures.
(photo credit to the lovely Sarah Muirhead)
This week of school has been pretty standard, as we returned to a more or less normal class schedule. We have started work on our next project and my group will be working on Hamlet. I’m extremely excited because for all the times I’ve read Hamlet and studied it in classes, I’ve never had the opportunity to explore it solely as an actor. It should be a fun, interesting, enlightening experience, particularly because our director is James. We’ve already had some unique and fascinating conversations. Tomorrow we are going to the Portrait Gallery to explore and be inspired by creepy portraits of British monarchs.
Monday night, we had a master class with the director of singing, Rob Archibald. It was a fun class in which we worked through the best ways to approach songs. He is a big believer in approaching a song first as you would approach a monologue. The melody and notes come later but more important is figuring out the message and meaning. This was a very helpful message to receive as someone who is most definitely an actor first and singer last. I wish we had him more than just this one time. He is a brilliant teacher and, even in one class, I learned a lot from him.
Last night, I went to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with some friends from LAMDA. It is a musical based on the 1988 film with Michael Caine and Steve Martin. The show was very funny and I loved the choreography and the music. The cast worked well together and were quite talented, though their strength was acting more than singing. The singing wasn’t bad, their acting was simply better. Seeing such a fun, light-hearted show was a nice break from some of the more artistic things I’m doing and seeing while here.
We really only have two more week of truly normal classes. Then we move into all day, every day rehearsals again. And then, all too soon, we perform our tragedies projects and are awarded our diplomas from LAMDA. We have less than a month left at LAMDA and I fly back home in just over a month. It’s crazy how fast time is flying… Although I feel like I have expressed a similar sentiment in every post. I suppose I’ll have to just accept it at some point…. Like on the plane out of Heathrow…
Until next time : )
Cheers.