Tuesday, February 3, 2009
London

After the worst snowstorm in two decades, London limped slowly back to normal today. Red buses were plying again and the ice on the sidewalks had started to melt. There actually were signs of life on the streets as I had my breakfast and finished captioning our Scotland album. Actually, it was rather an odd sort of day because Carol, the weather forecaster on BBC’s Breakfast show, kept saying that temperatures were be below the minus mark (which is a big deal here in London) but that the sun would shine all day!

I spent a while doing some preliminary research on my proposed Spring Trip with Llew and since Easyjet has a sale that ends at midnight tonight, I figured I would look at some possibilities. We have finally decided to go to Italy and Turkey for 9 days–essentially Rome (where Llew has never been) and Istanbul which so many of my friends have raved about and which I did want to see before I returned to the States. I also wanted to go to Egypt; but I find that airfares are really high right now and it might be best to go to Egypt and Jordan at the same time that Llew and I go to the Holy Land as that trip is very definitely on the cards for us sometime.

After I found us good fares, I dashed off an email to Llew telling him to get back to me and let me know if the dates I had in mind would work. Given the time difference between New York and London, I knew it would be a few hours before I heard from him, so I showered and set off to get myself a bunch of theater and opera tickets for the next few months as some marvelous shows have opened up in London for the winter season and I did not want to miss them.

It WAS a beautiful day–it is so rare to see the sun in these parts in winter that though it was very cold indeed, I did not feel the bleakness of winter surrounding me. I took the bus first to Shaftestury Avenue to the Apollo Theater where I got myself a single ticket to see Three Days of Rain starring James McEvoy (who played Robert in Ian McEwan’s Atonement). The show is filling up fast (McEvoy’s name is a huge draw) and I only managed to get a seat in my price range in April. Next, I took a bus to Trafalgar Square to the Trafalgar Studios to book a ticket to see Imelda Staunton (who played Vera Drake in the film Vera Drake) in Entertaining Mr. Sloan. This show has a very limited four week run and since I think Staunton is one of the finest female actresses working in the UK today, I simply did not want to miss it. How thrilled I was when I found a ticket for next Monday evening. Then, I simply walked across Trafalgar Square to the Coliseum where the English National Opera has two superb shows on in the next few months. I got myself a single ticket to see Puccini’s La Boheme in March and then bought two tickets for this Saturday evening’s show to see Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Stephanie will be spending the weekend with me in my flat and we decided to go to the opera and dinner on Saturday evening. Finally, I crossed the street (St. Martin’s Lane) and entered The Duke of York Theater to buy a ticket for Arthur Miller’s View from the Bridge which counts in its cast Hayley Atwell (I saw her recently in The Duchess and she also played the major role of Julia Flythe in the new version of Brideshead Revisited–which I have yet to see). She is one of the UK’s most up-and-coming actresses and I am delighted to be able to see her in person. So, with all these tickets in the bag, Culture-vulture Me then hopped next door into the National Gallery to complete the last six galleries I needed to study as part of my project to become closely acquainted with its collection.

I sat on a bench in the lobby and ate my quiche Lorraine and then began my perusal of galleries 41 to 46 which are the most popular rooms at the National since they contain works by the Impressionists. They were, therefore, far more crowded than the the other galleries I’ve studied. All the big names were here and all the most famous canvases in this genre (Monet’s Water Lilies, Van Gogh’s Armchair and Sunflowers, Degas’ Ballet Dancers, Renoir’s Umbrellas —I loved that work–Cezanne’s still lives, Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres, etc. etc.) but for me, as always, the works that caught my attention were the least known–I particularly warmed to a view of Badminton by Corot and a wintry scene in Norwood by Camille Pissarro. So many of these Impressionists ‘escaped’ to London to avoid the (Crimean?) War that they ended up painting English landscapes in styles that pre-empted the Impressionist rage that would shortly sweep over France. And it was these works that I found most intriguing. I also loved the scenes of the Siene at Argenteuille and Pointoise that Monet, Manet and even Morissot painted. Somehow, it is these rural river scapes that are most charm my eye and take me into imaginary realms that make me feel me serene and contented.

Then, I took the bus back home, glad that Llew had contacted me via cell phone while I was in the gallery and had greenlighted the dates I had picked for our travels. This meant that I could go ahead and book our Easyjet tickets online which I did immediately. So, Italy and Turkey…here we come! I now have to find us good fares from Rome to Istanbul but I do know that Swissair is doing some good offers at the moment. I organized all my theater tickets at home, changed a few plans to fit in with an invitation to drinks tomorrow that my friend Rosemary Massouras left me by email and tried to take a short nap before I left the house again.
You see, yesterday, just by chance, when we were standing outside NYU waiting for the campus doors to be opened, Ruth Smith Tucker, one of our administrative aides, had offered me a free ticket to see Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the Donmar Wyndham Theater on Charing Cross Road. I had jumped at the opportunity, of course, as I was aware that the role of Malvolio is being played by none other than Derek Jacobi, veteran Shakespearean actor (also star of Cadfael and I, Claudius). So, I pulled on warm clothes, took the bus to Charing Cross at 6. 30 pm, (after a small bite of more quiche Lorraine) and arrived at the theater to find David Hillel-Reuben, Director of NYU-London, in the lobby awaiting the arrival of his family. A little later, his wife and son joined us and still later, James Weygood arrived with my ticket.

Upstairs, in the Grand Circle, in one of the most beautiful theater interiors I have been so far, we settled down to watch a show that I have seen several times before and in several versions (the very first time being at the Royal Shakespeare Theater at Stratford-on-Avon twenty-two years ago when I was at Oxford). Yet, it never ever palls, this lovely amusing confusing heartwarming comedy that Shakespeare wrote so many centuries ago. I have seen so many Malvolios over the years and each of them has brought his own brand of humor and individuality to the interpretation of the role–but I know I will never forget Jacobi, who was simply masterful.

I was also thrilled to discover that Olivia was played by an Indian actress (Indira Varma who was in Bride and Prejudice among other shows). She is tall, slim, statuesque and very elegant indeed and when I saw her olive skin, so beautifully set off in the grand black mourning outfit she wore in the first scene, I knew she was an ‘ethnic’ actress. Yet another actor whose origin is undoubtedly the Indian sub-continent was Zubin Varla who played Feste, the Fool–he is not only from South Asia but a Parsi as well, as I can tell from his name. All of the cast were just superb and at the end of the show when I ran into Mick Hattaway who teaches Shakespeare at NYU and is considered one of the UK’s finest Shakespearean scholars, he said to me, “This is as good as it can get”. Indeed, it was brilliant, and I realized as I left the theater that I can see Twelfth Night again and again and never ever tire of it.

The show ended at 10 pm, I changed three buses to reach home and yet I was in the lobby of my building at 10. 25–this is the beauty of living in the Heart of London and of London’s buses–when they do run, they are reliable and convenient and, best of all, so cheap!!!

Back on my couch, I helped myself to some Carrot and Ginger Soup and the Strawberry Compote Trifle (courtesy of Marks and Spenser) and went straight to bed. It had been a day of art museums and quality theater and I was a happy camper as I fell asleep.