Tag: play

Meditation 48

As I sit here writing my meditation on the kitchen table with the candle beside me, I am feeling disappointed. These last months have been a season of disappointments for all of us, haven’t they?  So many plans have been cancelled or postponed because of the changing restrictions caused by the shifting motion of the pandemic. Who can contain it? It is like trying to catch all the silver fish in a slippery shoal with your bare hands.

Sadly, a magnet or two from Puglia in Southern Italy will not be added to my collection on the fridge doors for the moment. My retirement holiday has once again been postponed  because of changes in Italy’s entry requirements. Now a quarantine is imposed on travellers returning to the UK from Italy as well and only yesterday further internal restrictions were announced in Italy itself. At present all human endeavour seems to be enmeshed in restrictions and requirements. But they are for our own good, I suppose, however weary and annoyed we may feel about them.

So here I am cheering myself up by looking at my magnets again and reminding myself of places I have visited. I am a much travelled man so I cannot complain. As I have said before, one of the ways through these difficult times is to be grateful for what we have and thankful for what we have had, rather than dwelling on what we do not have. 

One magnet that has caught my attention is a photo of the iconic Hollywood sign. The sign is framed by palm trees high up on the brow of the Hollywood hills. I purchased it on my 60th birthday California road trip (which also included Nevada and Las Vegas).

Originally, the huge letters read ‘Hollywoodland’ and were erected in 1923 as a temporary advertising campaign by a real estate investor, keen to develop the land underneath. But as the Golden Age of Hollywood rolled out, the sign remained, without ‘land’ at the end. The real estate advertising ploy worked, as the hills soon became fully developed with estates and mansions almost touching the feet of the imposing letters themselves.

I visited there on a glorious day of L.A. sunshine in April 2014. My friends and I didn’t go to the top so that we could stand in the shadow of one of the letters and look down over the city. I am not very good with heights and in any case I don’t think you can go up there now or at least not very close to the huge letters. It was one of the highlights of our California road trip for me because Hollywood and its history have been a strand in my life since my childhood.

The sign is now a historic landmark as it should be. It is also tinged with tragedy. In 1932, Peg Entwistle, a 24 year old actress, climbed a workman’s ladder and threw herself off the letter H. I am surprised that her tragic story has never been turned into a movie itself during the decades since her sad suicide.

I was reminded of her by a recent Netflix drama series called ‘Hollywood’. It had at the centre of its storyline an attempt to make a movie about Peg and her sad demise. So at least she has been remembered obliquely in the glossy series which is set in the Hollywood of the 1950’s.

The sad incident is also referenced in the opening credits of the series. The young hopefuls who are the main characters climb up those enormous letters in the dead of night and use a workman’s ladder as poor Peg did. That is the tragedy of Hollywood. People are always climbing up or falling down in that town. Those who manage to climb up and keep their balance are fortunate indeed.

That 2014 trip was my third visit to Hollywood.  My first trip was in 1990. I was so excited. I remember my friend John, who was my host, drove me from the airport straight to the Pacific Ocean and there behind us on a cliff overlooking the sea was the old home of Charles Laughton, one of my favourite actors. Then he drove me back up through Beverly Hills and pointed out some of the grand mansions of other stars, past and present. And  I was staying only a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard too, in his apartment.

My stay in L.A. that time was for five days in the middle of a visit to my Canadian relatives who then lived in Toronto. It was quite a whirlwind trip and dotted with ‘this was filmed here’ and ‘he or she lived there’. I remember the Paramount arch, a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, a visit to the Getty museum and a show at the Pasadena Playhouse, where so many young actors and actresses honed their skills down the years.

But the highlight was a guided tour of Warner Brothers’ studios. As I walked through the studio gates, I felt I had truly arrived. Walking past the sound stages where so many of my favourite old movies were filmed was exciting and emotional. I also walked through two of the big sets : New York street (built for Warners’ 1930’s gangster cycle) and Town Square (built for ‘King’s Row’ in 1942) which have been dressed and re-dressed for so many movies over the decades (and they are still in use). It was strange walking through these huge sets in the sunshine and seeing them in colour as in my memories of them were in black and white! 

We went through every department including the huge props warehouses. Warners never seem to throw anything away and they hire props to other studios too. There in in the middle of all this bric-à-brac was the throne from the 1938 ‘Robin Hood’ and the exotic lamps from Rick’s Cafe in ‘Casablanca’ – two of my favourite films.

My second trip, in 2006, was even more exciting. I went to a Hollywood party! I was mingling with dazzling stars, directors, screenwriters, musicians and even a movie mogul or two. And what a setting! I remember it well. Spacious beautifully manicured lawns glistened a technicolor green in the sunshine. The centrepiece was a lake with fizzing fountains and pristine white swans delicately avoiding the floating water lily patches. In the centre of the lake itself, on a small island, stood a shimmering small white marble building. It looked like an elegant summer house.

Actually it was a mausoleum. And the illustrious party guests were all dead. For I was visiting the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Well what else would an avid film buff do with only a few hours to spare before dashing to the airport for his return flight to the UK?

So there I was, with a large map in my hand, courtesy of the flower shop at the entrance, picking my way through the lush green swathes to find the resting places of my favourite movie people. In my quest, I was oblivious to other visitors dotted here and there in the distance as I was determined to find as many stars and movie luminaries as possible in the short time I had left.  

Many graves had small squat headstones or brass plaques planted in the turf. It was an exacting task to locate the names which stood out to me in the long alphabetical list on the reverse of the map. I was often distracted in my search as I noticed other stars I knew. No autographs of course!

 I gave up on the grand mausoleums where the deceased were stacked up from floor to ceiling in marble walls that looked like celestial filing cabinets. I only visited one where I struggled to find Rudolph Valentino, the heartthrob of the silent films of the 1920’s. I had recently read a biography of him that a friend had given me. I remember standing in one of the marble corridors phased by all the names in the walls. I said quietly ‘Sorry Rudy – I  couldn’t find you and I have a plane to catch!’ Then I turned a corner to get to the exit and strangely there he was in the wall opposite!

I couldn’t miss Cecil B. De Mille, Hollywood pioneer and director of film epics, whose appropriately epic mausoleum was the size of a small house; nor mogul Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, and his equally bloated edifice. I realised the Hollywood pecking order clearly persists even in death.  

As I peered among the plaques in the ground, one in particular made me stop. It read ‘Hannah Chaplin: 1865-1928: Mother’. I was surprised until I remembered that her

 world famous son, Charlie Chaplin, brought her all the way from Lambeth in South London, to be with him and hopefully give her some comfort in her mental illness. And there she was at my feet, a long way from home, like many others resting here. But at peace now.

Several years later, I picked up a new biography of Charlie Chaplin when I was staying with my aunt on Vancouver Island. It was by an American psychiatrist, Stephen Weissman, and naturally Hannah featured in it a great deal and, in the book, there was a photo of her taken in L.A. a few years before she died. The book fascinated me and it led me to write a play for my school theatre group about Charlie’s childhood, youth and meteoric rise to being one of the first worldwide celebrities ever by the age of 25. It was called ‘Chaplin: the Early Years’ and was eventually performed in 2013. Despite reading the book and making copious notes, it was only when I started working on the script, that I remembered that I had seen Hannah’s grave. I hadn’t taken a photo of it. It didn’t seem right. But I remembered it clearly in my mind and still do. 

Overheated from my search through the lawns, I sat on a shady bench, reached for my water bottle and admired the palm trees silhouetted in the sun. It felt right that I was there, not just as a film buff but to pay my respects and to say thank you. A month or so earlier at my school, I had produced ‘Mickey and and the Movies’ about the birth of the cinema. It was the precursor to my Chaplin play, I guess. At the heart of ‘Mickey’ was a GCSE Drama project I had devised as a result of my first trip to Hollywood in 1990. So yes: it was good to say thank you. These people had not only entertained me and intrigued me over the years but they had inspired me. Perhaps, in my visits, some of their creative energy had  engulfed me too.

Not a few of the silent stars and filmmakers mentioned in my play were resting there now. But then all the stars resting all around me as I sat on my bench were silent now.  Yet they are still alive on film. A kind of resurrection.

The stillness of the surroundings enveloped me. I felt cold. A sadness weighed down upon me like a pall. A chill miasma of unhappiness. Not just Hannah’s. But others’ too. In this place. In this town. Past and Present. ‘The boulevard of broken dreams’ – Hollywood Boulevard a few blocks away – is a tired cliché, yet for me at this moment, it was a tangible presence.  I shivered. And it was gone.

Now I understood why I was really there. Not out of curiosity or thankful respect, as I thought. But to feel their pain. To be the celluloid imprinted not with their image but with their suffering.

I stood up, bowed my head and went home.

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

Meditation 44

As I sit here beside my candle, watching the steady flame, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, the inspiration for this blog. It is wonderful that we are able to read his own ‘Meditations’, which he wrote over 1,800 years ago and in a paperback edition too which is readily available in bookstores or even as a kindle book!

Though they were written in Latin and I have therefore been dependent upon a translator, yet he seems to be very present to me as I read them, as if he is really speaking to me despite the centuries between us. How far the real Marcus is reflected in these pages or how far it is the Marcus he would like the reader to see, I, of course, will never know. But there is an honesty and a genuine humility in his writing that makes me think he is truly present in his words. For one thing, he never mentions his military successes, whereas, for instance, his imperial ancestor, Julius Caesar, wrote extensively and interminably about his in his ‘Gallic Wars’!

I dare to hope that something of my own self is reflected in my own meditations in this blog, that I am present to you the reader through my writing.

During the months of lockdown since March, we have been present to each other in many different ways, thanks to digital technology, and in ways that Marcus could not have dreamt of. I say ‘being present’ because in these dark days, it hasn’t just been a case of contacting friends and family and acquaintances, but it has also involved being present to them as a support and encouragement and to share anxieties which may have meant spending a little more time than usual with them on a call.

There have been so many ways through which we have been present to others, not just the phone or e mail but through texts and group chats, and visually through FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype and of course the new medium of Zoom.

Video calls on whatever platform have enabled us to see who we are speaking to, which has been so important and a great comfort, as for several long months we weren’t allowed to meet friends or possibly even family because of movement restrictions. Looking at my emails, I think that texts and video calls are replacing the personal e mail to friends and acquaintances. I might be wrong about this – it may be that people just don’t want to write to me anymore!
FaceTime, WhatsApp and Zoom were new to me at the start of lockdown, but as someone who lives alone, they have been another lifeline for me (as well as calls, mails and texts) once I got used to them. In the early months, it was wonderful to be able to have a video call with my family, to see them as well as talk to them and of course my close friends too across the country and across the world.

However I must admit that I found triple conversations and a three way split screen difficult to handle on the small screen of an I phone! The smaller screen made me feel constricted. I am much more comfortable and relaxed with a Zoom call on the wider screen of a laptop. Maybe my big personality is more suited to a wider format! I would certainly have been at home in one of those wide screen epics of years gone by. Perhaps I could have played Marcus Aurelius (as Alec Guinness did in ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ and, less successfully, Richard Harris, in ‘Gladiator’).

I have had such a variety of Zoom calls in these recent months, a committee meeting or two, two lectures with the Dickens’ Fellowship (of which I am a member), a series of group meditations and one memorable evening when I spend two hours chatting with my dear friends David and Peter, while we drank our bottles of wine on our respective sofas in our homes across London from eachother. It was digital decadence! However, it does seem rather silly at times: talking to a laptop screen which then talks back to you! It’s like being in an old sci-fi movie without the dramatic and earnest conversations from screen to screen!

In a video call our friends or family are there but not there. They are present to us but not physically present. I must confess to being saddened sometimes when the video call was over, and in a way that I wouldn’t have been if it was an ordinary audio phone call. It is the fact that you can see family or friends (which is wonderful) but they are not really present with you in the room. So when the call is over and you wave and end the call, there can be a sense of loss, an emptiness. A video call can never replace being with that person or persons. Nevertheless, it has been a comfort, indeed a marvel, in these dark months we have been going through.

Another comfort to me has been the streaming of theatre productions online. These have been from the archive of the National Theatre, the Royal Opera and Royal Shakespeare Company. Over the last decade, these companies (and others under the National Theatre umbrella) have streamed live performances to cinemas and a selection of these performances have been streamed in lockdown on BBC I player and YouTube and are therefore quite recent. They have filled quite a few evenings for me and I have been able to catch up on productions I have missed. One advantage of these filmed performances is that the cameras enable you to see the actors close up, which may not be possible from where you are sitting in the theatre.

One of these productions was Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in a performance from 2019 at the new Bridge Theatre, by Tower Bridge on the Thames. I must admit that having directed the play five times and seen as many if not more productions of this play, I felt a little jaded about it as it started. It turned out to be an exciting, very funny and spectacular immersive theatre experience. The Bridge Theatre is able to change its seating for whatever production and had taken out the stalls seats so audience could stand while the play took place on a series of platforms and also above their heads as there were actors on trapezes above them at times. (‘Oh to do something like this in my school drama studio,’ I thought to myself!) The rest of the audience were seated in the circle on three sides. As is customary at present, there was some gender swapping of roles: Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, swapped lines for instance which created some hilarious situations. But the production was highly detailed and the text was very clear so Shakespeare was well served by this energetic company. Most important of all, it had warmth and was life-affirming and was magical (as all successful productions of this play should be).

I have mentioned in a previous blog (when I discussed seeing Wagner’s Ring Cycle of 4 operas at the Opera House) that a successful theatre performance creates an invisible ring binding the performers and the audience. This production of Shakespeare’s ‘Dream’ created that invisible ring from its first moment until the riotous final curtain call. There were many moments when I too, sitting in my armchair at home, felt part of that ring too. The experience was all embracing. What an achievement for the director Nicholas Hytner and his actors.
But they were only moments. Because I was not physically present in the audience. I certainly wish I had been last summer. As the play was nearing its final act, I began to feel saddened in the midst of the joyous atmosphere of the show. For our theatres are closed and I am missing them. We do not know when they will re-opened or when an immersive production like ‘The Dream’ with actors moving, running and dancing through the audience will happen again.

Much has been touted about Zoom and other platforms being the way forward while coronavirus and the threat of it remains with us and beyond, when we are back to a kind of normal. There has been talk of digital lessons in schools, webinars and digital lectures in university and other educational institutions, digital conferencing etc. In certain situations this may be a way forward. But we must remember that nothing can replace the physical presence of a person. And we cannot let digital communication distance us from eachother and break the bond of our common humanity (which the production I have discussed so potently celebrated). We are social beings which means being physically present to eachother.

There are times on summer days when dark clouds appear and stay there in the sky. It seems as if the sun will never come out again. But it will and does. I am sure we have had those moments in these recent months, when we thought the dark clouds wouldn’t go. Well lockdown is beginning to ease and the sun is peeping through the clouds. We are able to move around more and see more of eachother. I have been able to visit my family in Leeds and friends in the London area too. I have been able to visit an ‘old friend’ the National Gallery (as another friend of mine puts it). But more about these in my next blog.

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

As I sit here gazing at my candle, instead of being aware of the final rays of the day’s sunshine through my lounge window, I am focused on the gathering gloom. I must confess that my spirits are rather low at present. They are being dragged down by the lockdown, I think, which has now made its weary way into its eighth week. Living alone in the lockdown and being in my first weeks of retirement is quite a struggle. It’s rather like being on a really fast waltzer at a funfair and wheeling around dizzily after you get off. And in this lockdown, it is like hurtling into a void within a void.

I am sure Marcus had his moments of melancholy. It is part of the human condition and emperors are therefore not excepted from it. Neither are writers of blogs! I am no guru, but only someone who wishes to share his thoughts and reflections with others. No-one is a guru. No human being is able to know the complete truth about anything or to be an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom, least of all myself.

In Shakespeare’s time, melancholy was not only acknowledged and accepted but fashionable. It was a pose adopted by young gallants writing sonnets to the objects of their affection, especially if they were unsure that their amorous feelings were reciprocated or if they were downright refused. Shakespeare’s own sonnets (which I am re-exploring at the moment) are no exception and Jaques in ‘As You Like It’ is a melancholic with his cynical and world-weary ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech.

Hamlet of course is the melancholic par excellence, especially at the beginning of the play and has been christened ‘the moody Dane.’ I studied the play at A Level and fell in love with it. I related to Hamlet’s mood swings completely in my own adolescent angst. I wanted to play the role of course and learnt all Hamlet’s soliloquies for my exam and enjoyed doing so. However, I think I would have been more suited to playing Horatio, Hamlet’s good friend, a role I have played constantly in real life.

I once accused one of my sixth form students of being melancholic – he was being particularly moody in class – and had to explain the word to him. Thereafter, he brightened up because there was a big word which described his feelings and he used the word continually afterwards as young people will do when they find a new word that attracts them. He adopted a melancholic pose for ages afterwards. He had morphed into being an Elizabethan gallant, thought he did not produce any sonnets as a result.

I have been trying to identify why my spirits are low at present, dear readers. Along with many others, I am sure the lockdown has ground me down week by week. The first flush of online games and fun activities and contacting friends on social media and discovering

new ways of doing so is over. And you can only go up and down the Amazon to buy online purchases for so long.

I have asked myself what I am missing. Well, the theatre (though I am enjoying online archive performances of productions I have missed) and the cinema (though a lot of new movies are being streamed) and art galleries of course and concerts and the opera. Although I have seen so much theatre, movies and operas in my time (and especially over the last few years) that I cannot complain.

I think what I am really missing is the opportunity to share them with friends over a meal and a drink. I do not like going to the theatre or the operas or a movie or concert for that matter on my own. It is sharing these with others that makes them special. Yes going up to London to see friends is what I miss and of course the chance to visit friends around the country and most of all my family in the North and have friends visit me. Especially now that I am retired and have so much time at my disposal to do so.

I have of course been in constant contact with all my friends and family in these eight weeks and it is wonderful to see them on FaceTime or Zoom but it’s is not the same as being physically together. However, I’ve gone on safe distance walks with a few friends too in a local park which is wonderful and breaks up the week. And, of course, nothing can replace an embrace or a hug.

As I am at home a lot now, I’ve been looking at all the pictures on my walls. So many are from places I have visited. I have almost filled the doors and one side of my fridge with fridge magnets I’ve collected from places I’ve been to. Gift shops in museums and art galleries are magnets to me! And I have been scrolling down the photos on my phone and computer. I bought a digital photo frame years ago which I have hardly used so I’m going to upload a selection of them onto the digital frame to cheer me up in the evenings.

Traveling abroad is in the balance at present and I have had to forego two visits to Italy this spring. Fortunately my final Drama tour of Budapest took place in February before international travel restrictions. However I am a much traveled person, as regular readers of this blog will know. I didn’t go on a plane till I was 35 years old but have made up for lost time since! Perhaps I will make a list of all the trips I have been on. If I never travel on a plane again, I have certainly travelled enough! Again, it is seeng family and friends in other countries that I miss.

I have been thinking of my aunt Barbara, who lives on Vancouver Island. She has albums and albums of photos. Some of them are quite valuable to me as her albums go back to before World War Two when my father’s family were in Poland and there are pictures of my parents’ wedding which I had never seen. And of course there are photos of my childhood.

One I find rather embarrassing. It is of a chubby little version of me as a baby in walking reins. Every time I see it, I am back to being a teenager again and hot with embarrassment at being reminded I was an infant once. However, dear reader, I do look cute!

You see at the moment we are all in walking reins. We are unable to go where we want to for our own safety. And yes we tug at the reins because someone else is in control. We want to be out and about. We want to wander off (on a plane). Built we can’t at present. For our own good.

I suppose we are beginning to realise what we really value in these days of quarantine. We are being to value what we have rather that hanker after what we do not. And to remember all the riches we have experienced up till now.

Like Friar Lawrence in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (another part I’d love to play), who counsels the miserable Romeo because he has to go away in exile (to be quarantined effectively) and will not be able to see Juliet. He reminds Romeo that at least he has not been sentenced to death and keeps repeating the phrase ‘Thereto are you happy.’

A phrase we should be repeating to ourselves at this time.

Think – ‘Thereto are you happy!’

But an embrace or a hug would be wonderful!

Stay safe and well!

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

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

I am writing this meditation with a candle nowhere in sight. I am in a rather cosmopolitan location. I am seated in the Cafe Dumas in the Institut Francais overlooking the Danube in Budapest. As I am soon about to begin rehearsing my dramatisation of a great work of French literature, ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ by Victor Hugo, perhaps it is appropriate that I am writing my meditation here in the Institut Francais and in a cafe named after two other great 19th Century French writers : Alexandre Dumas, father and son. And my dramatisation of Hugo’s novel will be presented here in Budapest next February. So the location is very much appropriate.

So here, quite close to the famous Lanchid (Chain Bridge) I am watching the boats on the river and the yellow and white number 2 tram going up and down the opposite embankment. It is the most popular tram in Budapest, the tourist tram. The weather has been extremely hot here since I arrived as it is the last days of summer. Today is cooler with a welcome breeze and distinctly autumnal. The leaves on the trees on the embankment are beginning to change colour already and are a mix of vibrant green and russet brown.

How many journeys have I made on that tram since I first came here? Next month, it will 30 years since I first came to Hungary and to Budapest. The Republic of Hungary will be 30 years old too next month, as first I came here in the week the republic was first established in October 1989. So like the leaves in the breeze, there are many memories swirling around in my head this afternoon. I am feeling distinctly autumnal. I am autumnal. I may even be slipping into winter. These last few days have made me realise that I am getting older, if not old! I have finally realised how old I am.
I have just been in one of the city’s museums: the Museum of Fine Arts.It has an antiquities gallery in the basement, with artefacts from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Italy. In this gallery there is an funerary monument: a man and woman and a boy between them. The boy is not their child or grandchild but one of their slaves as they were obviously a wealthy couple, if they were able to have funerary statues for their burial.

The man has a middle-aged head with curly hair and a beard ( a typical ancient philosopher’s head) but his head is on top of a youthful, athletic body. His body suggested to me that he was guilty of wishful thinking! Or was he a young man with an old head on his shoulders?
However, the woman’s head was missing but her body looked clearly like that of a Roman matron, ‘a lady of a certain age’ as we would say. So it appears that the man was in some sort of mid-life crisis: middle-aged but imagining himself still youthful and athletic (if he ever was!). Looking closely at my own torso in the mirror recently, I think I am beyond imagining that now! I have now become part of the ‘realist’ school of literature!

By reading the information card beside these statues, I discovered that this kind of funerary statue was common in Roman times. It was an attempt to depict the idea of ‘a beautiful and good man.’ Presumably the ‘philosopher’ head of the statue suggested that the man had good and humane thoughts and lived by them and his youthful, athletic body suggested that this way of thinking and living made the man beautiful. For is it not goodness that creates beauty in a person?

I may be getting old but I still have a youthful spirit or I wouldn’t be in any way successful as a director of young people. They appear to still enjoy rehearsing with me. So here we are about to start rehearsing another production in the next few weeks. And next February we will be embarking upon another tour to Budapest. Except it will be my last production and my last tour.

It was quite emotional for me as I walked into the Kolibri Children’s Theatre last Friday for my usual meeting. We have been presenting productions there for over 20 years. I found it very hard to tell the production team that next year will be my last one. But it is time to bow out, to retire. I did not realise how difficult it was all going to be until I stood outside the theatre last Friday. How difficult it will be to let go. That is because I did not fully comprehend how close I am to the Kolbri Theatre and its director, Janos and its staff and it’s wonderful, warm appreciative audiences down the years. I had not realised how big a part of my life it has been. Or how big a part of my life this country has been.

In the antiquities gallery there was a quote on one of the large information boards. This quote has been attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: ‘The invisible connection is stronger than the visible.’ That is what I had forgotten: the invisible connection. The invisible connection that binds us together, that touches our heart, becomes part of us. And so this city and my friends here and the dear Kolibri Theatre will still remain part of my life because of that invisible connection, but in a different way. Like one season shifting into another.

Several friends who read my blog have asked me why I do not include photos . My reason is partly because, although I do sometimes write about my travels, I would hope my meditations are more than a holiday diary. I would hope that my blog is more discursive than that and that my powers of description are sufficient for you, dear reader, to visualise the people, places and works of art I seek to describe. Besides, shortly you will be able to hear the author’s voice as well as read his words as a selection of these meditations will be appearing on YouTube in an audio version. More news on that in my next meditation so:

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

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Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

It is quite a while since I last sat beside my candle to reflect and to compose a meditation. I have been busy directing and presenting our latest school production at the Rose Theatre Kingston: ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, which took place last week.

As I sit here preparing to write my meditation beside my candle, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, my inspiration. I am remembering his face. I have seen it recently or rather a marble representation of it. I have just been on a visit to Florence and there, in the Uffizi Gallery, were two very long corridors lined with numerous Greek and Roman statues. Among these there were many Caesars looking down in imperial disdain on the herds of visitors as if they were captives dragged home to Rome. There seemed to be a statue or bust of every Emperor that lived. I noticed Hadrian, who looks quite similar to Marcus himself as they both have beards. Indeed, for a moment I thought Hadrian was Marcus until I read the little card in Italian and English on the wall beside the bust and realised he wasn’t. My mistake led me in search of Marcus himself.

Marcus was born during Hadrian’s reign. His rise to power was by adoption: when his wealthy father died, he was adopted by his grandfather and then, when his grandfather died, by his uncle, Aurelius Antoninus. Marcus then took his uncle’s name: Aurelius. Hadrian had no sons to succeed him so he adopted Aurelius Antoninus as his heir and when Hadrian died, he became Emperor Antoninus Pius. There is a temple to him in the Forum in Rome. And so, when Antoninus Pius died, Marcus Aurelius himself became Emperor, through all those adoptions. It could be argued he became Emperor by accident.
Half way through my search through the thicket of tourists in the long corridor I found his old uncle Antoninus Pius, looking serious and grave as a ‘pius’ (dutiful) man should.

I finally discovered Marcus at the end of the corridor with his stoical detached gaze on top of a black marble plinth. It was an older Marcus that I saw, with his curled hair and full beard, very much the philosopher rather than the military commander.

Because I was looking at a bust of his head and shoulders, it seemed as if he was about to turn his head and share his thoughts with me. A full length statue would have emphasised his power and conquests like the huge bronze one of him on horseback, hand raised in blessing, in the Capitoline Museum in Rome which I have seen several times and which has never ceased to impress me.

Yet here there was an intimacy about our encounter even though his eyes seemed to be looking beyond and above the corridor, lost in meditation again, perhaps sensing the aimlessness of the constant movement of the crowds around him. In his “Meditations’ he writes ‘No action should be undertaken without aim or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life’. In other words, our actions should be focused and should conform to our own philosophy, a philosophy that upholds life. We have seen very little of that among our politicians recently!
I must admit to being a little hard on my fellow gallery visitors. They are not necessarily aimless. After all one of the aims of going to a gallery is to explore, to discover and to appreciate. Not all visitors are aiming for a famous picture or sculpture or the work of a favourite artist. However so many were moving quickly from picture to picture, from statue to statue without staying long enough to take in what they were seeing, except perhaps to have the obligatory selfie with the famous ones.

This was borne out by a video presentation towards the end of the gallery route. My friend Alan, who accompanied me, watched it. A photographer, posing as a gallery visitor with an I pad, filmed the reactions of visitors to some of the gallery rooms. He turned these into a short film. His montage included people who would come up to a picture, take a photo of it and then move on, without even a cursory look at it. Our culture seems to be about grabbing and taking home, about acquisition and possession. Grabbing the picture as a digital image on a phone or I pad is more important than letting the picture grab the person. Possession is more important than interaction.

But back to Marcus. I was interacting with him even though his gaze was not on me but above me. His eyes looked real and the artist, whoever he was, had caught the depth of Marcus’ personality in them. They were the eyes of a real thinker. I have always presumed that classical statues had blank eyes with no pupils, to signify either that the statue was a representation of a dead person, who’s spirit was no longer in the body or that the statue was just that, a statue and not a real person. But apparently, the Romans gradually developed the idea of portraiture in statuary.

Impressive though Marcus’s stare was, it could not match the intensity and fire of the eyes Michelangelo’s David, which we saw at the Academia Gallery the following afternoon. But then, David is not a philosopher but a youth about to fire the stone from his sling that felled the giant Goliath. Situated in its huge grey alcove at the end of a great hall, the sheer size of the statue created an atmosphere of hushed respect, of silent awe among the onlookers. The overwhelming magnetism of the statue forced visitors to stop and look.

It is sad that Michelangelo’s David, along with Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ has become an artistic cliche. They are the most famous works of art and have been reproduced in so many different ways and used to advertise so many different products from chocolates and fridge magnets to underwear. On my trip I noticed ‘David’ kitchen aprons and briefs and a tee shirt with a cartoon Mona Lisa doing the ‘dab’ arm gesture of current youth culture.
Yet, David certainly towers above all this banal consumerism. I have yet to see the Mona Lisa in the Paris Louvre. David’s face is an enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile is purported to be. Sometimes he looks very stern, at others serene and then as if he is smiling. The young Michelangelo’s achievement is to create a figure that is the embodiment of stillness and yet about to exert great energy and strength. His achievement is even more emphasised by six other male statues in the great hall, all unfinished from his later life. Their bodies seem to be wrestling with the rock that still confines them, their torsos writhing to come alive. From a rock such as theirs, David was brought to life.

The eyes, it is in the eyes -as a good actor and director knows. How do we look at works of art? With the intense, focused gaze of David? Or with the meditative gaze of Marcus? Or with the blank almost pupil-less stare of an Ancient Greek statue?

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

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Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

It is evening and the darkness is only closing in because the days are getting longer and the nights shorter now. The candle burns cheerfully beside me as I begin to write. It is as if it has realised that Spring has come, although the sky has been grey and devoid of sunshine all day! Whenever I begin to write this blog, so many memories and different facets of my life come to mind. This was especially true in my last one, when I had just visited Redcar, my hometown, and memories of my childhood and youth understandably crowded in.

Yesterday evening I visited another place which evoked memories and reminded me of different aspects of my life.

I was at a performance in the West End at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. I visited that theatre several times when I was a teenager, on annual visits to London with my mother and grandmother. When I was 14 and in the 3rd Year (Year 9 as it is now) our class had to undertake a History project. Being a budding actor and excited by my fleeting visits to the West End stage, I concentrated on London’s historic theatres and, in particular, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. The elegant auditorium impressed me so much and took a hold on my imagination, as there is reputedly a ghost in the theatre.  It was built in 1716 and was only the third theatre to receive a Royal warrant (after the other Theatre Royals in Drury Lane and Covent Garden). It was known affectionately as ‘the little theatre in the Hay’ as it is smaller than the other two though equally as opulent.

The interior has been beautifully restored in recent years but even without this, to my young eyes it was magnificent, with powder blue seats in the Upper Circle where we sat and an elegant Victorian bar with marble floors and glass mirrors. I felt so sophisticated and a true gentleman as I drank my ginger beer there in the interval. I have moved on to wine and gin and tonics since then of course!

The first play I saw there was the 18th century comedy, ‘The Rivals’ by Sheridan starring Sir Ralph Richardson who was wonderful, I remember. And to be seeing an 18th Century play in an 18th Century theatre was perfect: the action on the stage matched the ambiance of the auditorium. I am sure Sheridan’s comedy had played there many times before, down the years.

We went back the following year for ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’- my first introduction to Oscar Wilde’s comedy, with Dame Flora Robson, not as Lady Bracknell but as a highly strung Miss Prism. It was a delightful comic characterisation and I remember it clearly. But I wasn’t allowed to elegantly swill ginger beer in the bar this time as we were at a matinee and the licensing laws didn’t allow theatre bars to be open for matinees then. So we had afternoon tea instead. This was brought to our seats by elderly waitresses on trays which clipped to the back of the seats infront of us (and complete with china cups, tea pot, sugar bowl, milk and hot water jugs and fruit cake, would you believe!). The way they juggled the trays up and down the upper circle stairs would be worthy of Cirque Du Soleil these days!

I enjoyed the play so much that I bought the LP’s of a 1940’s production with Sir John Gielgud and Dame Edith Evans (as Lady Bracknell with her definitive rendition of ‘A handbag?’). When I got home, I would play those records over and over again and eventually knew the play virtually by heart. I was surprised how much I remembered many years later (in 2002) when I directed the play at my school. I also played Lady Bracknell and managed to avoid imitating Dame Edith’s ‘A Handbaaaag?’

Memories of those performances swirled in my head as I sat in the theatre last night, waiting for the performance to begin and I shared some of them with my friend Phil who was with me. However, at the moment, the theatre is not playing host to an elegant society comedy, but a musical based on the classic sit-com ‘Only Fools and Horses.’ Nothing could be more different: the chirpy, cheerful exploits of the wheeler dealer Del Boy and his family in 1980’s Peckham in South London. A very incongruous production for the historical Haymarket Theatre. Photos of the show in the foyer reminded me of watching it  on TV, but more than that, it brought back memories of when I used to work in Peckham myself at Camberwell Unemployment Benefit Office.  

I worked there in my twenties before I began my teaching career. It was a difficult time for me: I was rather lost and in my ‘terrible twenties’ as I call those years. I found it very challenging trying to deal with human need but being circumvented by unemployment benefit rules. I survived there for three years, however, and made some good friends there, three of whom, Alan, Teresa and Janice have remained friends since.

It was my friendships and my visits to the theatre that got me through. I saw everything I could: plays, musicals, opera, ballet. I thought I might become an actor or a director or even an opera director but of course didn’t have the personal drive or confidence then. At the back of my mind I knew I could be a teacher, though. I remember being with my friend Teresa at a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company and thinking about it: instead of being an actor, maybe I could become a teacher to help young people to appreciate Shakespeare. And that’s what I tried to do in the end.

So it was rather strange last night seeing those two worlds – Peckham and the plush West End Theatre – together.  

However,  I wasn’t at the Haymarket Theatre last night to see a performance of ‘Only Fools and Horses’. It was to attend a ‘Sunday Encounter’ – one of a series of weekly interviews with current theatre stars.  Sir Derek Jacobi was being interviewed by his ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ co-star Anne Reid. You may have surmised from earlier paragraphs that when I was a teenager I was in awe of theatre Knights and Dames. I would look out for them in films and on television and of course it was a thrill to have the chance to see them live on stage. Sadly I never saw Sir Laurence Olivier on stage. ‘Sir Laurence’ was one of my father’s nicknames for me when I was a teenager as he knew I had theatre ambitions. Olivier was mentioned frequently by Sir Derek in his reminiscences as he gave the young actor a place at the Old Vic in the first National Theatre company.

Now I am no longer in awe of theatre royalty and it wasn’t because Derek Jacobi is a ‘Sir’ that I was interested to hear him last night. I have seen him many times on stage before anyway.  I idolised him when I was a young man, long before he was a Sir. He was the kind of actor I would have liked to have been: sensitive, perceptive, witty and a master at playing Shakespeare and Chekhov (my two dramatist idols). He has a beautiful voice and has formidable vocal skills, being able to play Shakespeare’s poetry and to find the poetry in what ever text he is performing. As a vocal actor myself, I have always tried to emulate him and to pass on some of the skills he demonstrates to my students. Indeed, when I am being mannered as an actor, I sometimes dissolve into an impersonation of him!

Obliquely, Sir Derek gave my teaching career a boost. I had a rather shaky start in the first two years (as most of us do) and was even thinking of giving it up and going on the stage. Sir Derek was appearing with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Theatre in a triumphant season in Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ as Benedict and Prospero in ‘The Tempest and as Cyrano de Bergerac. Needless to say I saw all of them and he was the best Benedict I have ever seen and heart-rending as Cyrano. He was also very genuine when I got his autograph afterwards. So I decided I would write a fan letter to him (care of the stage door of the Barbican) and to say that, at the age of 29, I was thinking of becoming an actor. To my surprise he wrote a long handwritten letter back and was very helpful. His advice was the advice he had been given as a young actor: ‘If you want to act: think twice. If you have to act: go ahead.’ So I persevered as an English teacher! And eventually I found my true niche as a Drama teacher. I have kept the letter and have never forgotten the  advice. I have passed it on to many students who were thinking of an acting career themselves.

So I had ended up where I was meant to be. I am a very fortunate man!  

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

​​

A I write, a candle is not flickering beside me this time. Instead a lone electric lamp is my companion. I am in my hotel room in Budapest and through my window, above the buildings I can see the Buda hills wreathed in mist in the distance. Dawn is beginning to break and its pale cream light rises over the blue mounds of the hills. A bird has just flown over the trees towards them as if intrigued by their shadows.

So now I am in Pannonia, where Marcus and his legions once trod. My fancy would like to think that Marcus pitched his camp here on the site of this hotel and that in his tent, as he wrote his meditations at break of dawn he had the same view of the hills as I have now. He would have been writing more slowly than I am of course. He would not be pounding a portable keyboard attached to an I pad. No doubt he would have gazed into the gathering mists of dawn and slowly wrote on his parchment or wax tablet. To think that we might both be writing our thoughts onto tablets! And just as my meditation is saved on my mini computer so his would have been transferred to scrolls of parchment by a scribe. And somehow those scrolls survived to be read by far distant generations.

What will happen to my digital meditations? Will they survive? I am not so vain as to think that future generations will read my thoughts, let alone appreciate them. I do not know if I want them to. But I am enjoying sharing my thoughts with you, the followers of this blog and heartened by the positive comments I have received. Marcus’ own meditations were also an essentially private document, as I have said before, a compilation of the writings and teachings that had most influenced him, the ideals he aspired to, and in his striving to live up to them, made him who he was.

The light has gone off in my room. The electricity doesn’t appear to be working. So I am writing this now by the light of the dawn through the window. I am in true Marcus mode!

I awoke very early this morning at four. The hotel was quiet and unusually still. All 300 rooms. It was to early for the habitual slamming of doors and footsteps in the corridors. I could not hear a sound: ‘Not a mouse stirring’ as Francisco says in the opening scene of  Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’.  

I could not go back to sleep. I have my big show today: two performances of ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the Kolibri Theatre. It will be a long day: arriving at the theatre at 10 to set up and have a brief technical rehearsal for scene changes, lights and sound before curtain up at 2 and then a break and curtain up again at 6. So understandably my mind was teeming with things to do.  When these thoughts finally dissolved I turned over and tried to get to sleep again. But to no avail.

So I listened to the silence in my room. It was then that I realised just how still the hotel was. The silence was comforting, like a blanket around me. I have learnt that silence can be comforting. It is not necessarily threatening – something to run away from, to escape from into music or noise. In fact the best music has silent moments, as does the most effective drama. But silence can be challenging, challenging us to sit down, relax, to be still. To be aware of where we are and who we are.

In the silence as I lay there, I listened to my heartbeat – regular and strong. Being a cerebral person, living in my mind, my thoughts and, in my writing, my imagination, I am not always fully aware of my body. I live mainly in my head. As a result I have not taken care of my body as I should over the years!  It may seen strange that as I am an actor and a Drama teacher I am not always fully aware of my body. I am when I am on stage, of course, or demonstrating something in a rehearsal or class. Nevertheless, I have never been a very physical actor: my strength has been in my vocal skills and interpretation of text.    

As I listened to my heartbeat in the silence in the room, I wasn’t annoyed by it as I have been before: ‘All I want to do is get back to sleep and I can’t because I keep hearing my heartbeat!’ I just gave in and listened to it. As I listened, I was reminded that I am a physical being, that I am dependent on that heartbeat to live. And I was reminded of my mortality, that the time will come when that heartbeat will stop. In the silence it was a gentle beat, not an aggressive one: my heart is my old friend after all.

I wonder if Marcus listened to his own heartbeat in his tent in the night and if he was reminded of his own humanity and mortality. It would seem so from his writings. He is constantly aware of mortality, of what little time we have:. ‘No you do not have thousands of years to live,’ he writes, Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, do good.’

Later in the day I was alone on the stage of the theatre. I had sent everyone off to lunch and was working out the scene changes alone. The theatre staff were at lunch too. I stopped scribbling for a moment and looked out into the auditorium.It was still. It was silent too. But the silence was one of expectancy – a performance was soon to take place. And again it was warm like a blanket. I was at home again in the Kolibri, where I have been for over twenty years. And hopefully I was doing good.

 

Ave atque Vale 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’.

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

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

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius