Tag: reviews

MEDITATION 105

As I sit here by my candle, I am looking out of my kitchen window at the drab grey sky louring over my garden on this nondescript autumn day.  So to cheer myself up, I am thinking back to a beautiful golden sunset I experienced last week. Those of you who read these pages, will know that I do like my sunsets. My twilights too. They echo within me now that I have reached my twilight years. The sun has not yet set over me, but when it does, I hope it will be a golden one. 

The radiant sunset I experienced was over the River Thames near Hampton Court. As I stood at the top of the pathway down to the river itself and looked down on the swathes of green glistening in the sunlight below me, I felt transported back in time. Ahead of me was an elegant rotund building with a dome and portico framed by tall trees and hedges. The grey dome shone in the sunshine. In front of the building was the green itself which stretched down to the river. The river itself was resplendent in the light, its waters surfaced with silver. On the green some boys were playing with wooden swords. Or were they limbering up before they practiced with real ones? 

It appears I had chanced upon an 18th Century enclave. The scene could be the subject of an oil painting of the period. All that was missing perhaps, was a small dog, possibly a spaniel, scampering at the heels of the boys. Possibly there could be a small sail boat skimming the waters of the river too and a lone angler fishing from the bank. A girl on a swing hanging from the boughs of a tree near the portico might complete the charming scene. In my mind I listened for the clip-clop of a horse drawing a carriage approaching behind me. But there was none. Only the persistent mechanical drone of cars, lorries and buses came to my ears.

Actually I had walked down to the path from a bus stop. From where I stood, I was viewing Garrick’s Green, named after the star 18th Century actor, David Garrick (1717-1779). The elegant domed building was built by the actor himself as a Temple to Shakespeare. It now houses a small museum of pictures and artefacts relating to him and is called Garrick’s Temple. Over the main road, which is now a main thoroughfare to Heathrow airport, is the large mansion, Hampton House, which he occupied and developed as his summer villa and weekend haunt when he wasn’t appearing on the stage at Drury Lane in London. The mansion is now apartments. Originally the lawns would have stretched from the villa to the river and of course, minus the modern road traffic and airplanes overhead, it would have been a quiet country retreat for Garrick from the hurly-burly of the London theatre scene. 

The boys with the wooden swords were rehearsing a scene (or attempting to!). As I walked down the sloping path to the Green, I could see other boys rehearsing too on park benches or standing and reciting their lines across the river. Sadly there were no ducks or swans to play to.  They were students from Richard Challoner School in New Malden where I worked for many years. There in the sunlight by the river they were engaged in their final rehearsals for a Shakespeare evening that was taking place in Garrick’s Temple. I was there to help with rehearsals and to take part too along with some members of staff. 

I have been past the Temple so many times on the way to the airport and have always wanted to pay a visit. Now here I was not only visiting but also performing there, thanks to Leigh, my successor in the Drama department, who organised the event.  

The Temple, being small, is an intimate place to perform in and has excellent acoustics. Sometimes concerts take place there, apparently. The performing area was at the opposite end to the entrance, in front of an imposing statue of Shakespeare himself in a raised niche which is the focal point of the interior. I would like to comment that Shakespeare was looking down benignly upon the young performers, but he was paying no attention to them, looking away to the right as if in the midst of creating. 

The rest of the room was filled with chairs for the audience and every chair was filled. I felt quite proud of the students as the audience were so close to them and they could see them clearly as it wasn’t possible for the lights to be dimmed. It didn’t seem to put them off at all.  

A warm glow permeated the room during the performance. As I sat in the back row of the audience, I wondered how the room would have looked by candlelight in Garrick’s time. The warmth and the glow would have been not too dissimilar, I imagine. I have sometimes spoken in my meditations of the invisible circle between the performer and the audience in a successful performance. Well here we were, performers and audience,  actually within a circular building! However, I will not comment on whether that invisible circle was achieved as I was a performer myself. 

It was fitting of course that we were performing Shakespeare in Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, not only because of the building but because of David Garrick himself as he was the pre-eminent Shakespearean actor of his time. As I sat in the back row of the audience, waiting to perform Sonnet 29, I looked up to the domed ceiling and then around the walls filled with Garrick memorabilia and then back to the students performing a scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with the large statue of Shakespeare behind them. 

As I did so, the thought came to me that we were all part of a tradition, an acting tradition of playing Shakespeare. Garrick had been part of that tradition, nearly three centuries ago, which he handed on to others and which I, in my own small way, imparted to my own students over the years. One of those was Leigh who is also handing that tradition on to his own students and here they were performing in Garrick’s building. 

Just for a moment that tradition was tangible as if hovering in the air. I saw my career as part of a bigger picture. And for a brief moment too I felt a little proud that I was part of that tradition. Then the moment evaporated as it was time for me to perform my sonnet. 

I also performed a speech by Prospero from ‘The Tempest’: ‘Our revels now are ended’. I had played the role with my students for my retirement performance in 2017.  On this occasion, I fluffed a line and covered my mistake by repeating an earlier one. 

I am sure Garrick must have done the same sometimes. Shakespeare too when he was on stage, for that matter.

Ave atque Vale

Neilus Aurelius

PS: Incidentally I have decided to become a volunteer at Garrick’s Temple! It is open on Sundays in the summer from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. www.garrickstemple.org.uk

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River Thames

Hampton Court

Garrick’s Green

David Garrick (1717-1779)

Garrick’s Temple

Shakespeare

Heathrow

Drury Lane

Richard Challoner School 

New Malden

Theatre Performance

Shakespeare Sonnet 29

”Romeo and Juliet’

’The Tempest’

Meditation 95

As I sit here beside my candle I have found that my thoughts have slipped back into Drama teacher mode. Please understand I have not been walking around my lounge as if I was back in my Drama studio at school, teaching an imaginary lesson to imaginary students. I am not living in the past, just yet! Although in an imaginary lesson the students are at least attentive, being invisible! However, in my teaching days, I would sometimes practice a lesson at home, especially if the text or topic was new.
My thinking this evening has gone into Drama mode because I have been considering different styles of acting, having recently returned to acting myself. An ex student who is now a film director asked me if I would like to take on a role in one of his projects. The film was going to be shot on location in South London, not in a major film studio like Shepperton down the road, sadly! He asked if I would play a nasty, racist pensioner. Not a very glamorous role for my professional film debut either! It was a professional engagement, as I was being paid a fee. It was also an important project: a short training film, sponsored by Southwark Council, about how to deal with racism.
A good friend of mine helped me develop a South London accent which is different from the quasi -Eastenders one I had been adopting when rehearsing at home. So I did engage in some research! Apparently, South Londoners have a tendency to play down ends of words (unless they are angry). This is the exact opposite of my vocal training, of course, which I passed onto my students. I was always telling them to make ends of words clear. This is very important on stage so as to be heard by the audience. So a slight mental adjustment on my part was needed. It was all about getting into role, after all.
So, there I was, a week later, standing on a landing in a block of council flats in Peckham, surrounded by the film crew, while verbally abusing a ‘Nigerian cleaner’ on the landing below. The cleaner, played by an actor called Glen, had no lines in the scene in response to my abuse. The crew had filmed him cleaning the floor first and were now filming his facial reactions while I repeated my abusive line off camera so that he could react to it. I also had to pretend to spit on the floor, shouting to him to clean it up. Yes: I was not a very nice character!
Then it was time for the crew to film me. My character was leaving his flat to go shopping so I had a couple of empty carrier bags under my arm. I had to pretend to close the door of the flat to my left, see the cleaner on the landing underneath, deliver my abusive lines, spit on the floor and then walk to the lift to the right and press the button to go down.

We rehearsed it a few times and then we were ready for a ‘take’. Alex shouted ‘Action’. I moved my hand on the door handle of of the flat as if I had just locked it. I was about to turn and see Glen below me, when the door of the flat suddenly flew open and a lady in a pink dressing gown stood in the doorway.
‘Here – what’s going on?’, she said to me (or words to that effect), ruining the scene. She thought I was a burglar trying the door. I can’t understand why she hadn’t heard Alex shouting instructions earlier, or me shouting my abusive line down the stairwell for that matter. Alex had to explain that we were filming. She then became demure, apologised and retreated back into her flat. Apparently, no-one from Southwark Council had informed the residents that filming was taking place!
Despite this unexpected interruption we were finished in an hour. I found it was quite a relaxing experience even though I had to focus and stay in the zone repeating my performance for the crew. I did not have to continually project my voice as on stage. Also, it was a very short scene, of course, and a long way from playing a major role such as Prospero from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ which I played several years ago.
I was experiencing what I used to tell my students in my classes: that film acting is more low key than stage acting and can therefore take less effort. I remember several actors talking about this in TV interviews.
However, film acting does demand acute concentration as I have just mentioned. You may have to wait around for a length of time too and yet be ready to go into your scene, to ‘be on’ as they say. The phrase comes from the Theatre and being ‘on’ stage, adapted to being ‘on’ camera. I had no waiting around at all.
Also, while you are performing, the crew is all around you and you have to forget they are there. It was quite cramped on the landing where we were filming. As well as Alex, the director, there were the cameraman, the sound man with a microphone, the lighting man and two ladies from Southwark Council in close proximity. It made me realise how more difficult it must be for an actor working on a major film in a large studio (or on location, even, as I was) with an army of technicians around them, and yet be in role, focused, ‘on’. I thought this while I was standing there waiting for the crew to change positions from filming Glen to filming myself.
I was reminded of this again a few weeks later when I attended a special screening of the new film ‘Maestro’ which is about the American classical conductor, composer, pianist and educator, Leonard Bernstein, who died in 1991. He is perhaps best remembered for composing the score for the musical ‘West Side Story’.
The screening took place in the IMAX cinema near Waterloo station in London and it was a special event because it was being introduced by the film’s stars Bradley Cooper

(who plays Bernstein and also directs the film) and Carey Mulligan (who plays his wife, Felicia). The film charts their marriage through the years with the conductor/composer’s phenomenal, high octane career as a backdrop. It is a remarkable film and both actors are remarkable in it, especially Bradley Cooper who not only gives a highly detailed performance as Bernstein (he is Lennie to the life!) but also directs the film. Mr Cooper had obviously done his research: but then there is so much archive footage of Leonard Bernstein as he was a media personality for most of his career, giving interviews, making his own TV programmes and documentaries, and there is endless footage of him in rehearsal and in concert too. Both actors also consulted Bernstein’s three children, to whom the film in dedicated.
There was nothing of the ‘star’ about Mr Cooper and Miss Mulligan, when they were interviewed before the screening. They were both very natural and down to earth, indeed, Mr Copper came across as being quite humble. It was such a contrast seeing them in person immediately before seeing the film, where they were towering over us on the huge IMAX screen. I remember Mr Cooper commenting on this himself, wondering what this intimate portrait of a marriage would look like on a larger than normal screen. His worries were unfounded: the intimacy seemed even more evident as if we were in the room with them. And the music on the IMAX sound system was something else! Watching the film reminded me of the big close-ups so prevalent in movies of the golden age of Hollywood, which we see so little of now in movies.
I do recommend the film: it is screened on the smaller screen on Netflix soon.
Well now that I have made my professional film debut I wonder where it will lead me? Will I end up emblazoned on a big IMAX screen? I doubt it. ‘Eastenders’? No thank you. However I would like to do some more filming in a modest way. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable experience and it enervated me, because I was acting again.
Yes it would be lovely to act again. Too late for panto now! And it’s too late to get a job playing Santa in his grotto too! Let’s see what the New Year brings.
Meanwhile, dear reader, wishing you a very Happy Christmas and here’s to peace on earth in the New Year. We need peace.
Ave atque Vale Neilus Aurelius
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.

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