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Wednesday, September 28. 2011

LSE Phantom of the Opera Night at Her Majesty's Theatre

On Monday night I hosted a theater event that I had been organizing like crazy for the past month. Basically I was able to purchase group tickets for great seats to The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It was very very very difficult to round up 15 LSE postgrads to actually pay me and then get the tickets, although there were originally over 150 people interested in the event. But when we did, it was WORTH it! We met up for dinner across from the theater and got drinks afterward, and I was surprised that almost everyone was from a different place. And the seats! I have to say these were the best Phantom seats I've ever had. I was right in the middle of the very front row, all for only £38. I'm very satisfied with the evening.

I've seen the London production once before (and I've seen Phantom on stage a total of 11 times now) and this was definitely one of the better ones. I was fascinated by the Christine we saw, played by Katie Hall: most Christines will look visibly shaken and scared when the Phantom's voice first booms out, especially when he takes her off to a scary lair under the Opera. But not this Christine. She looked positively joyful, dreamily joyful I would say, when she finally met her angel of music. By the end she played a Christine who was 100% sure she wanted to get away from him, but I felt like it was more because this Christine realized that she needed sunlight and happiness and she was frustrated and angry at the Phantom for turning it all to darkness and woe! A very interesting rendition.

You can hear her Think of Me here. Her voice is scratchy at times but when she actually reaches the important parts (the operatic bits) she is absolutely spot-on.

The Phantom was Scott Davies, not particularly memorable. He was not the dashing type of Phantom but he did a good job of not letting that disadvantage him. Good vulnerability and hurt, sort of a psycho type, and not the one you would want Christine to end up with! My favorite Phantom is Hugh Panaro - I saw him on Broadway in 2004. I also really want to see John Owen-Jones as Phantom: he's the main actor right now in London and I plan to keep going until I see him! I previously saw him portray an amazing Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

The Raoul by Killian Donnelly was someone you could see as very privileged and who goes after what he wants, i.e., Christine - sometimes I feel like he's played sort of like a wuss but this one played him with almost brutish self-confidence. And I really liked the addition of a handsome Andre, played by Gareth Snook, who also seemed quite piqued by Madame Giry!

Great show, great night out and I'm so glad it was a success. It's so nice to meet people from other departments at LSE. Some of us are going to go see Les Miserables next!

Tuesday, September 27. 2011

Windsor and Cumberland Lodge LSE Weekend

(My iPhone photography skills couldn't capture the lovely view of Windsor Castle behind this statue.)

My LSE department (Media & Communications) hosted a retreat to a grand old 17th century house owned by the royal family on Windsor Great Park for students last weekend. This is the second time I've done something quite like this, that is, a retreat with a bunch of students I don't know and most of whom are from backgrounds far different from my own.

I met some great people, became enthused for the year, and of course the location was amazing! We were smack dab in the middle of royal parkland. Most of the time was spent in lectures hosted by professors and wandering around the area by the house. My roommate and I had a lovely room too (converted from old stables - oh well!):



The main thing people all mention is that visitors to Cumberland Lodge can attend chapel where the Queen often goes. She wasn't there this weekend - apparently she's holidaying in Scotland - and anyway I used the free hours to get very lost in the middle of Windsor. This wouldn't have been a problem but our bus was leaving at 12:30. I was seriously on the point of just calling a taxi or even stopping a car and trying to hitchhike! There are some great walks you can take around the park and I walked 20 minutes to a statue where you can see a beautiful view of Windsor Castle 4 miles away. And lots of bright red mushrooms, deers with huge antlers, cows - that sort of thing.

No problem there, but after that it all went a little off-track as I stupidly got onto a horse path, got my shoes soaking wet, and ended up in the suburban part of town. I guess it's not unusual to get lost though because I bumped into a London family who was trying to figure out where they were too (we were outside a self-proclaimed 13th century pub that finally told us where to go). I was trying to get to Savill Garden, which looked very pleasant when I finally stumbled into it, but I was terrified of missing the bus and ended up just asking the ticket lady for directions back to the Lodge! Anyway, I really should have known I was going the wrong way when I had to jump up to press the gate button meant only for horseback riders…

I remember my former retreat (for a global community I lived in sophomore year which was the start of a fantastic friendship among us) as something that, though it was on a much smaller scale, shaped us throughout the year. During the actual retreat, though, I was pretty miserable! I remember something that was said to me on that trip. It's probably the biggest impression I have of that whole weekend: I was embarrassed to be exhausted and antisocial and just wanted to go to sleep. But a girl I hardly knew at that point said to me: "You are an adult, you know what you want to do, and don't apologize for it!"

So I took that for the theme this weekend and did not stress out about it. Nothing truly extraordinary happened, in fact it was quite awkward many times, especially since none of us knew each other. But it was good to finally meet everyone from my program! And some of us are planning to go back to Windsor for a day trip and actually visit the Castle next time.