Tag: kolibri

Meditation 45

I do not want to be seated here writing this meditation with my lighted candle beside me on the table as usual. I would rather be writing it in the Drama studio at my school. I revisited it yesterday and would rather have written my thoughts there, when I was in situ, than trying to remember my reflections now a day later. It will be a case of ’emotions recollected in tranquillity’ as the poet Wordsworth writes about his own verses. Most of these mediations thus far have been ’emotions recollected in tranquility’, the tranquillity of my own home. Wordsworth’s phrase would be a good definition of a meditation. A meditation requires a little distance from the situation; a calm detachment.

My emotions were tranquil yesterday when I called into school and wandered into the Drama studio where I used to work until February this year. There was non-one else there as the school doesn’t open for lessons until next week. The space was empty and silent.

But it wasn’t cold and dark as the sun was shining through the windows at the top of the walls and, for those of you who have never been there, it is not a ‘black box’ as other studios often are. The walls are a sky blue and the blackout curtains are a deeper royal blue. I chose the colours myself when we were designing it in 2007. Heavy curtains of whatever colour would provide a blackout for performances and practical exams anyway and I wanted a bright and cheerful colour for the walls as the space (the old school gym converted) would be operating as both a large classroom and a studio theatre. I remember that at the top of my list at that time was the phrase ‘a flexible and intimate space’.

In a previous blog, I described being on an empty stage before a performance. The house lights are up and you are standing or sitting there looking at the empty auditorium. It was the Kolibri stage in Budapest I think. I used to love that moment alone on the stage while the cast and crew were getting their lunch before the matinee. It wasn’t just the chance to get my thoughts together before the show. There’s an atmosphere of anticipation in an empty theatre before a performance, an air of expectancy, and even though it is empty there is also a special warmth. It’s not because of the house lights out there in the auditorium or the stage lights beaming down. It is a feeling of being at home. No more than that: for me one of those rare moments when you realise that this is where you should be, just for this moment. I shall miss that warmth, that realisation, now I am retired.

The empty drama studio yesterday was entirely different. The space wasn’t set up for a performance as there wasn’t one. It was set up as a classroom with the retractable theatre seating back against the wall. I borrowed my colleague Leigh’s directors chair (mine got broken somehow ages ago) and sat in the middle of the performing area at the other end between the scenic flats that make a stage. I looked around the studio from there, facing where an audience would be.
Needless to say, memories flooded in of rehearsals, productions, gala evenings, exam performances, lessons, which I won’t bore you with. I can’t remember them now anyway. They flew in and out of my consciousness swiftly.

I have experienced that moment of warm anticipation before a performance in the studio too. It would generally be on the second or third night after the first night was over. There would always be some crisis or other to sort out before opening night!

But as I sat there yesterday, I realised that since the studio opened in 2007, I had never sat down and taken a good look at it. I’ve been too busy teaching, acting, directing and creating to notice the space I was working in properly. That is as it should be. Nevertheless I obviously have a great affection for the space. It has been a joy to work there in the final years of my school career. Not quite an Indian Summer as I do not think an Indian Summer can last for 13 years! I greatly miss working on a scene in the studio.

So here I was, now retired, finally looking around my old workplace, my creative space, my studio. ‘My empire’ as I would jokingly call it. Marcus’ empire was considerably larger than mine! Mine is more intimate and as a result more meaningful. I do not think he would have felt as I did yesterday as he stood outside his tent looking out over the plains of Pannonia.

How did I feel? Well I wasn’t upset or sad. Nor did I feel a sense of ennui. I found myself smiling. I realised that so much of me was in those walls. As I have just mentioned, I came up with a concept for the space. I could see myself everywhere, as I looked at the lighting box, the lighting and sound equipment, the seating, the scenery flats, curtains and walls. I had a creative input in all of these, working along with the previous headteacher, Tom Cahill and an ex-student Colin Mander.

What I felt was another kind of warmth: the warmth of pride.
I am reminded of a short play by Noel Coward called ‘Family Album’ about a Victorian family gathered for a celebration. In the play a family member makes a toast:
‘Here’s a toast to each of us and all of us together.
Here’s a toast to happiness and reasonable pride.’

That is what I felt: reasonable pride. And a glowing sense of achievement.
So why, do I ask myself, now that I have retired, am I so anxious to keep on achieving having achieved so much already? Perhaps I should take to heart the next line of the toast:
‘May our touch on life be lighter than a sea bird’s feather.’

Perhaps Noel Coward was thinking of himself when he wrote that line. He had a long and successful career as a playwright, composer, actor and entertainer. He must have constantly felt the drive to achieve.

So I slowly walked out of that Drama studio smiling and with a glow of pride which is an achievement in itself I guess.

As the Proms isn’t functioning as normal this year (like everything else), the BBC are putting archive performances on the radio each evening. So I have been listening to a wonderful performance of Mahler’s 5th symphony from 1987 with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by the legendary Leonard Bernstein. In the middle of this amazing life-enhancing performance I have realised that life is not about achieving but about creating. I want to continue creating.
But I have left out the last line of the toast by Noel Coward. I think it is rather appropriate as we continue with trying to cope with coronavirus into the Autumn.

‘And may all sorrows in our path politely step aside.’

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up! And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested. A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

It is quite a while since I sat here beside my candle to write a meditation. I have not had much time to be reflective as, like Marcus, I have been on a campaign and like him I have been in Pannonia for a while. Except I have not been leading a military campaign but a theatrical one and to modern day Pannonia, that is Hungary. The time has come around again for our annual school Drama tour to Budapest. Like Marcus, once again I watched the sun come up over the Buda hills, though not from a military tent (as he would have done) but from my hotel room a week or so ago.

The sun has come up, or rather, gone down on my final tour. It is hard to believe that it is thirty years since the first one in February 1990. As I sat in my hotel room the other morning and gazed through the window at the sun over the Buda hills, a dazzling disc in the clear early morning winter sky, many memories inevitably flooded in. Now that I am home again I am sure many more will stream into my consciousness and perhaps into this blog too.

But on that particular morning there was little time for nostalgic reverie. It was the morning of my final performances at the Kolibri Theatre and I had to be breakfasted and out of the hotel early with the technical crew so we had time to set up the production before the cast arrived. My final production there was ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and we were giving two performances: one at 2 in the afternoon and the other at 6 in the evening. I was too busy to be sad or nostalgic that day. But I did take lots of photos of backstage, the auditorium and the beautiful foyer. As the theatre is a children’s theatre, it is painted like a jungle with tigers, monkeys and exotic birds peeping out of the foliage. I had hoped to have a little time alone on the stage while everyone went to lunch but it didn’t happen.

Strangely it did last year, when we were performing ‘A Christmas Carol’. Somehow we had set up quickly and efficiently and when everyone else went to lunch, I did find myself sitting alone on stage in the stage lights looking out to the empty auditorium. There is an alert stillness about an empty theatre, especially when the stage is set and the performance will soon begin. There is an atmosphere of anticipation, an air of expectancy. As I sat there I felt the warmth of that lovely theatre seep into my bones. Memories flooded in more potently than in my hotel room just now. That is because the stage is where it’s at, not a hotel room. And so, as I sat there, it was then that I felt sad. And yes I did shed a tear because I knew that either then or a year later would be the end.

Prior to the tour, the 30th anniversary was celebrated at the school with a Gala Performance,which the Consul General of the Hungarian Embassy here in London and the Mayor of Kingston attending along with ex-Drama students who had been on the tours over the years and colleagues and ex-colleagues and friends too. Several friends, ex-students and colleagues attended the other two performances as well. So many people to see and so little time to talk to them all. The memories streamed in with them. A heartfelt thank you to all who came along!

I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs – it was in connection with ‘A Christmas Carol’ last year – that, as in Ancient Greek Drama, the director and actors’ aim is to create an invisible circle between the performers and the audience. Experiencing Wagner’s Ring Cycle of four operas at the Royal Opera House in autumn 2018 had reminded me of this. It is easier, of course, to create this circle in a small studio theatre than in a large auditorium like the opera house at Covent Garden. Nevertheless, it is a magical thing when it happens, like the magic ring at the centre of Wagner’s operas. I am pleased to say that it did happen, both in the school’s studio and the Kolibri Theatre.

During those performances at school and at the Kolibri, another circle appeared as if by magic as I watched the performances from the wings. For these were my final performances. My career as a teacher and director had come full circle. And all those students, the past ones in the audience and the present ones on stage, were part of that circle, that golden round, which extended to a country a thousand miles away. My heart was almost bursting with as much pride and excitement as when I watched our first ever performance in the school by Lake Balaton from the wings 30 years ago.

At the beginning of the second performance at the Kolibri Theatre, Janos Novak, the theatre’s director, made a presentation to me. It was a plaque: oblong in shape and of polished wood. It had a wooden marionette attached to it. There is a brass citation underneath in recognition of our 24 year creative friendship and officially making me an honorary member of the Kolibri Theatre Company. I do feel greatly honoured and very moved.

The marionette is very appropriate as because Kolibri is a children’s theatre, puppets are often used in performances, even for older children and young people. The puppet on the plaque is a Harlequin and is beautifully carved and painted in a delicate cream. The large diamonds of Harlequin’s costume are a contrasting peach in colour. He wears an orange hat and brown shoes. Harlequin is one of the oldest characters in European Theatre, first appearing as one of the stock characters in the Italian Commedia dell’arte plays, which began before Shakespeare’s time. So I am doubly honoured. Although I am too short and slightly too rotund to play the slim Harlequin!

The marionette is attached to the plaque by a piece of wire at the back of the head. Therefore the arms and legs are able to move. They clattered about in a plastic bag when I carried the plaque back to the hotel after leaving the theatre. Dear old Harlequin reminds me of how my life has been in semi-retirement. Like the puppet on the plaque, my hands and feet have been free to move but I have still been attached to the school through productions and the drama tour.

Now I am totally unattached. I am like Pinocchio: ‘I got no strings!’ But like Pinocchio when he first tries to walk without them I am a little wobbly on my legs. Losing his strings was a big deal for Pinocchio and it is for me. The fear of freedom threatens to blow me over. However, once I find my feet I am sure I shall be fine.

Like Pinocchio the marionette has a slender nose. His features are carefully painted onto his wooden face. Sometimes when I look at him, his mouth appears to be smiling, At other times he looks sad, as if he saying farewell. Perhaps he represents the theatre’s farewell. His eyes smile sometimes too, and at other times look wistful and sad. He appears to be a marionette with mixed emotions.

As have I.

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius